csua.org/u/a06 -> www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/space/11/15/arms.missile.laser.dc.reut/index.html
Science & Space US airborne laser advances to 'First Light' A concept image of a new airborne anti-missile laser system. A concept image of a new airborne anti-missile laser system.
The test, dubbed "First Light" by insiders, lasted only a fraction of a s econd but gave the project an important boost at a time it was deemed at risk of cuts or cancellation. The Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency described the event -- carried out on Wednesday in a 747 fuselage on the ground at Edwards Air Force Base i n California -- as a "landmark achievement" for the so-called Airborne L aser system. "It showed they work," said Kenneth Englade, an agency spokesman, of the laser's six identical, pickup-truck-sized, modules linked to fire as a s ingle unit. The Chemical Oxygen Iodine laser is built by Northrop Grumman Corp. It in cludes breakthrough optics designed to focus a basketball-sized spot of heat on a missile's skin to rupture it up to hundreds of miles away. Pentagon officials envision several such aircraft flying by turns near No rth Korea or another potential foe's territory. The goal is to detect, t rack and destroy a missile when that would be easiest, before it release s a warhead that could be tipped with chemical, nuclear or germ weapons. Demonstrated progress, particularly in achieving "First Light," would be critical to continuation of the project, negotiators from the House of R epresentatives and Senate armed services committees said in a report las t month accompanying the 2005 Defense Authorization Act. Congress authorized President Bush's request for $4743 million for the p rogram in fiscal 2005, which began October 1, as part of the $10 billion budgeted for missile defense development and deployment. Philip Coyle, the Pentagon's chief weapons tester under former President Bill Clinton and a critic of early missile defense deployment plans, des cribed the test on Wednesday as very important to people working on the program. "They deserve a lot of credit for having gotten this far," he said in a t elephone interview. "But they've still got a long way to go" to demonstr ate shoot-down capability. Among other technical challenges, Coyle said, engineers must figure out w ays to fire the laser for the longer time needed to zap a missile withou t damaging the optics through which the beam passes -- a kind of technic al Catch-22. In coming months, Englade said, engineers hope to boost the duration and power of the laser's beam. It will then be installed on a 747-400F aircr aft for a test that includes shooting down a dummy ballistic missile ove r the Pacific. A multibillion-dollar ground-based system for detecting and destroying mi ssiles fired from a country like North Korea is due to be declared ready for operation by the end of next month. The ground-based system, also integrated by Boeing, is meant to be the fi rst leg in a system that could ultimately include the airborne laser as well as interceptor rockets that could become the first weapons based in space.
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