- Of all the new weapon systems planned for the US Air
Force (USAF), service leaders say they consider the Airborne Laser (ABL),
like the F-22 Raptor air-supremacy fighter, truly transformational because
it will revolutionise warfare.
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- Now, after almost a decade of development, the USAF and
Missile Defense Agency (MDA) are poised to begin flying the first ABL test
aircraft in the next several months and move what they say is one step
closer to an operational system.
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- Loitering at altitudes around 40,000ft, the ABL system
is designed to destroy boosting ballistic missiles with a multi-megawatt
laser beam that travels at the speed of light over great distances. The
high-energy beam, which will be about the diameter of a basketball, will
heat the side of a missile until it fails structurally and tumbles to earth.
Ideally, ABL programme officials say, the missile, along with its payload,
will land on the territory of those who launched it.
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- The ABL system is carried aboard a modified Boeing 747-400F
commercial freighter aircraft. It will house a high-energy chemical oxygen
iodine laser (COIL), sophisticated beam-control system with adaptive, 'deformable'
mirrors to accurately point and fire the laser through atmospheric disturbances,
and a battle management, command-and-control system that can simultaneously
track and prioritise potential targets.
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- Boeing spent 20 months modifying the 747 test aircraft
at its facility in Wichita, Kansas, starting in January 2000. The company
leads a contracting consortium called 'Team ABL'. It is also responsible
for total weapon system integration and the system's battle management
element. Lockheed Martin is developing the beam-control and fire-control
segments. TRW is supplying the COIL system and providing ground support.
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- The aircraft modifications included replacing the aircraft's
nose with a turret for the laser and beam-control optics, adding steel
struts to reinforce the body and titanium supports to the underbelly and
placing an airtight bulkhead in the interior to separate the crew from
the aircraft's laser modules.
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- Final ground tests are under way on the test aircraft,
which is dubbed the YAL-1A Attack Laser. It will fly initially without
the COIL and beam-control systems, both of which are still undergoing developmental
work. USAF Col Ellen Pawlikowski, who heads the ABL system programme office
at Kirtland Air Force Base, New Mexico, on behalf of the MDA, said she
does not expect the aircraft to fly with these two components until early
2004.
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- The USAF wants the ABL to have a lethal range of at least
200 miles. Programme officials say that, under the Bush administration,
the ABL's ability to engage missiles of intermediate and even strategic
ranges will be determined only by its technical capabilities and not limited
by policy restrictions.
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- Programme officials estimate that the operational ABL
system will have enough onboard chemical 'fuel' to shoot down 20-40 missiles
before having to land to replenish. In addition to missile defence, the
ABL will have inherent capabilities to perform other activities like engaging
threat aircraft, temporarily blinding enemy satellites, performing imaging
surveillance and providing cruise missile defence.
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- © 2002 Jane's Information Group. All rights reserved
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