Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Boeing-led Team Fires Surrogate Lasers from Airborne Laser Aircraft
Boeing ^ | June 26, 2006

Posted on 06/26/2006 2:03:46 PM PDT by Righty_McRight

ST. LOUIS, June 26, 2006 -- A Boeing-led [NYSE: BA] industry team and the U.S. Missile Defense Agency (MDA) took a major step toward demonstrating the capability of the Airborne Laser (ABL) by successfully firing surrogate lasers from inside the aircraft.

During recent ground tests at Boeing facilities in Wichita, Kan., the team placed the lasers in the ABL aircraft, a modified Boeing 747-400F, and fired them repeatedly into a measuring device called a range simulator. The tests verified that the ABL team properly aligned the optical beam train, a series of optical components, steering and deformable mirrors, and sensors that will guide lasers to an actual target. The equipment exercised in the tests is part of the beam control/fire control system designed and integrated by Lockheed Martin.

The lasers used in the tests were low-power surrogates for ABL's high-energy laser and two illuminator lasers. The program plans to install actual illuminators in the jet for ground and flight tests later this year. The track illuminator laser is designed to track all classes of hostile ballistic missiles. The beacon illuminator laser will measure atmospheric conditions, allowing the beam control/fire control system to compensate for atmospheric turbulence in the high-energy laser's path to a target. During this year's flight tests, the illuminators will be fired in flight at a missile-shaped image painted on a test aircraft.

The high-energy laser, which achieved lethal power and run-times in a ground laboratory in December 2005, is currently being refurbished and will be installed in the ABL aircraft in 2007 to prepare for the program's first missile shoot-down test, slated for 2008.

"The surrogate-laser tests provide further proof that the ABL design is sound," said Pat Shanahan, vice president and general manager of Boeing Missile Defense Systems. "They also bring ABL closer to important flight testing later this year and to the 2008 lethal shoot-down milestone. This is an exciting time for the program, and our team has worked hard to make it that way."

Boeing is the prime contractor for ABL, which will provide a speed-of-light capability to destroy all classes of ballistic missiles in their boost phase of flight. Boeing provides the modified aircraft and the battle management system and is the overall systems integrator. ABL partners include Northrop Grumman, which supplies the high-energy laser and the beacon illuminator laser, and Lockheed Martin, which provides the nose-mounted turret in addition to the beam control/fire control system.


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Government
KEYWORDS: 747; abl; boeing; lockheedmartin; mda; miltech; missildefense; northropgrumman; usaf

1 posted on 06/26/2006 2:03:51 PM PDT by Righty_McRight
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: Righty_McRight

Very cool!


2 posted on 06/26/2006 2:04:13 PM PDT by BenLurkin ("The entire remedy is with the people." - W. H. Harrison)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Righty_McRight

Take That Lil' Kim !


3 posted on 06/26/2006 2:05:17 PM PDT by cmsgop ( DO NOT VOTE FOR PEDRO !!! He's a DEMOCRAT......)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Righty_McRight

4 posted on 06/26/2006 2:08:09 PM PDT by Yo-Yo (USAF, TAC, 12th AF, 366 TFW, 366 MG, 366 CRS, Mtn Home AFB, 1978-81)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Righty_McRight

Wonder if the Dims will ever remember that the warmonger Bush nixed the ABM treaty? Still waiting . . . . . .


5 posted on 06/26/2006 2:08:19 PM PDT by neodad (USS Vincennes (CG-49) Freedom's Fortress)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: BenLurkin
>Very cool!

There's lots of cool stuff
going on with lasers and
advanced targeting . . .

Navy, Air Force to Develop Twin-Mirror Laser-Retargeting Satellite Technology

The U.S. Navy and the Air Force are sponsoring a research laboratory focused on developing technology for a revolutionary new satellite, able to receive and re-target laser beams anywhere on earth.

The lab is located at the Naval Postgraduate School, in Monterey, Calif.

The school’s superintendent, Rear Adm. David R. Ellison, said that this project is the “epitome of the joint, interdisciplinary research efforts that will drive our nation’s future military capabilities, and which none of us could do alone.”

In the newly christened NPS/Air Force Research Lab Optical Relay Spacecraft Laboratory, researchers successfully demonstrated the laser tracking ability of a prototype twin-mirror Bifocal Relay Spacecraft designed to receive “up” beams and refocus them via a ‘steering’ mirror and second main mirror onto targets of choice on the ground.

If fielded, a constellation of 27 of the twin-mirror satellites will orbit at 715 kilometers sometime in the next decade.

“This is breakthrough work towards our goal of instantaneous global power with global reach,” said R. Earl Good, director of the Directed Energy Directorate of the Air Force Research Laboratory, at Kirtland Air Force Base, N.M., which is co-sponsoring the project.

The Bifocal Relay Mirror Spacecraft project owes its very existence to NPS officer students. It started as a student spacecraft design project. In 2000, the NPS/AFRL team won the prestigious National Reconnaissance Office Director’s Innovation Initiative Award, and with it $340,000, to further develop the technology.

During the next five years, the new laboratory and research effort will receive approximately $3.5 million in Air Force and Missile Defense Agency funding.

“What you’re seeing is the only integrated spacecraft control/optical technology demonstration anywhere,” said Air Force Capt. Mary Hartman, program manager for AFRL’s relay mirror technology program.

AFRL scientists have the lead on the project’s optics, while the Navy’s corporate university has the responsibility for spacecraft control.

“The Bifocal Relay Mirror Spacecraft project marries the best expertise of our two groups—NPS’s in spacecraft attitude and vibration control and AFRL’s in high technology optics,” said Aeronautics and Astronautics Prof. Brij Agrawal, director of the NPS Spacecraft Research and Design Center.

Good said the most likely future system would be a mix of ground-based, airborne, and space-based lasers in addition to the beam-retargeting space-based mirrors.

“This is not an either-or proposition,” he said. “They’re complementary.”

According to project managers, the bifocal mirror tracking and targeting system is likely to first be tested on a lighter-than-air balloon or airship as a stepping stone to the ultimate space platform.

Agrawal stressed that the technology being developed for the space-mirror project is widely applicable to a number of other areas, such as reconnaissance, space optics, space communications, remote imaging, enhancing night vision capabilities, camouflage detection and penetration, chemical warfare agent detection and identification, theater wind profiling, tunnel and underground structure detection, and cloud ceiling detection.

6 posted on 06/26/2006 2:08:38 PM PDT by theFIRMbss
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: Righty_McRight

One day smaller versions of this weapon will be mounted on missiles.

One missile, multiple targets - and maybe a use the missile as a kinetic kill device as well when the laser runs out of power.


7 posted on 06/26/2006 2:13:36 PM PDT by coconutt2000 (NO MORE PEACE FOR OIL!!! DOWN WITH TYRANTS, TERRORISTS, AND TIMIDCRATS!!!! (3-T's For World Peace))
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Righty_McRight

Ronald Reagan was no fool! Fortunately, we did not allow the demorats to axe this program, though they tried mightily.


8 posted on 06/26/2006 2:14:18 PM PDT by pissant
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Righty_McRight
Gosh. This might be considered "provocative" by the rest of the world and they might not like us any more.
9 posted on 06/26/2006 2:16:31 PM PDT by GBA
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: pissant

I had the pleasure of working on the SDI program in the Pentagon during President Reagan's terms. He was a true visionary, and a great patriot.


10 posted on 06/26/2006 2:17:53 PM PDT by Laserman
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 8 | View Replies]

To: Laserman

And the most eloquent spokesman for conservatism.....ever.


11 posted on 06/26/2006 2:19:18 PM PDT by pissant
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 10 | View Replies]

To: GBA

Heard a great reply to Libs who worry about our image with the rest of the world:

"Okay. You worry about the French, while I worry about the safety of our children!"


12 posted on 06/26/2006 2:19:30 PM PDT by Laserman
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 9 | View Replies]

To: theFIRMbss

Because these are retargeting satellites and not weapons themselves, I bet these won't violate U.N. treaties banning weaponization of space. Very smart move.


13 posted on 06/26/2006 2:26:17 PM PDT by doc30 (Democrats are to morals what and Etch-A-Sketch is to Art.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: Righty_McRight

Sky Masters!


14 posted on 06/26/2006 2:27:36 PM PDT by Trust but Verify
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Righty_McRight

We put frickin' laser beams on the frickin' planes!


15 posted on 06/26/2006 2:27:36 PM PDT by Buck W. (If you push something hard enough, it will fall over.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Laserman
I had the pleasure of working on the SDI program

I worked on several kinetic SDI programs as well ... Ronald Reagan was a great man and a great President

16 posted on 06/26/2006 2:36:30 PM PDT by clamper1797 (CAPITAL LETTERS SUGGEST SOME IMBALANCE IN THE MIND OF THEIR EMPLOYER.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 10 | View Replies]

To: GBA
That's why this needs to be fast-tracked in case we have to illuminate them.
Love it!
17 posted on 06/26/2006 3:12:04 PM PDT by mcshot (Enemies pouring through our gates and others holding office under false pretenses.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 9 | View Replies]

To: Righty_McRight

Hmmmm, so Reagan was right again.


18 posted on 06/26/2006 11:29:24 PM PDT by aruanan
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson