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U.S. to Test Missile Defense Laser Annually
The U.S. Missile Defense Agency plans beginning next year to annually test the ability of the Airborne Laser to bring down ballistic missile targets, Inside Missile Defense reported yesterday (see GSN, Jan. 4). Following the August 2009 test, the Airborne Laser program would carry out “approximately one major lethality flight test per fiscal year” if it has sufficient funds to do so, an agency spokesman said. “Each test will be against a threat-representative ballistic missile under different engagement conditions than the lethal demonstration,” he said. The Airborne Laser aircraft is expected to fly in several diagnostic evaluations before it takes part in the first laser exercise. The flights would begin and end at Edwards Air Force Base in Sensors on the aircraft would identify and track a target by its infrared signature about 35,000 feet above sea level, the environmental report states. When the aircraft points and fires its high-energy laser toward the target, “the energy from the (laser) would heat the missile body canister causing a stress fracture, which would allow the pressure inside the (missile’s fuel) tanks to destroy the missile,” the report says. The laser can only be pointed up due to geometrical constraints during the tests, the agency said (Thomas Duffy, Inside Missile Defense, Jan. 9).
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