Airborne Laser shoots down missile target

From Ares

Airborne Laser Shoots Down Scud-Like Target

Posted by Robert Wall at 2/12/2010 5:32 AM CST

At times it seemed like the day might never come, but the Airborne Laser now has destroyed a boosting ballistic missile in what may be one of the biggest breakthroughs for laser weapons to date.

The highly modified Boeing 747-400, designated YAL-1A, performed the feet at 8:44 p.m. pacific time at the Point Mugu naval air warfare center sea range off California, shooting down a liquid-fueled, Scud-like target.

The Missile Defense Agency says the intercept sequence took place within 2 minutes of the target being fired.

ABL has been years in the making and uses a high-power chemical laser to project energy on the target. One of the key features is a deformable mirror, which modifies the laser wavefront when it exits the 747’s distinctive nose to assure the laser energy us deposited on the target most effectively.

Under the ABL sequence of events, the target is detected using an infrared sensor. Then a lower-power laser tracking illuminator laser (TILL) and beacon illuminator laser (BILL) are used to create the firing solution for the high-power chemical oxygen iodine laser to engage.

The test has been almost a decade in the making. When the ABL program got started, program officials were hoping to achieve the milestone around 2001/02. But the technology proved more difficult to develop, causing repeated delays, and the aircraft itself didn't fly until 2002.

The success comes at a time that ABL is effectively winding down, having gradually fallen out of favor at the Pentagon and being viewed now as largely a research effort.

Perhaps that outlook may now be revised, although defense secretary Robert Gates has made clear he is not a fan, questioning the operational utility of the ABL.

During yesterday’s test, ABL also engaged a solid fuel missile, fired from San Nicolas Island, says the MDA. The target was engaged, but ABL stopped the lasing sequence before it was destroyed.