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Here is an update on ABL
Aerospace & Defense
Laser Systems
Government Products and Programs: Airborne Laser (ABL)

TRW is a member of a team selected by the U.S. Air Force to develop and demonstrate a revolutionary new weapon system-Airborne Laser (ABL). Team ABL includes the USAF, Boeing, TRW and Lockheed Martin. TRW is designing and developing the system's Chemical Oxygen Iodine Laser (COIL) and providing ground support. Boeing, the team leader, is responsible for weapon system integration and supplies the 747-400F aircraft and BMC4I-battle management, command, control, communications, computers and intelligence. Lockheed Martin supplies the Beam Control/Fire Control system.

ABL is one part of the DOD's robust "Family of Systems" architecture that addresses the world's growing theater ballistic missile (TBM) threat. Only ABL can destroy hostile TBMs while they are still in the highly vulnerable boost phase of flight-before separation of the warheads. ABL will operate above the clouds, where it will autonomously detect and track missiles as they are launched, using an onboard surveillance system. The Beam Control/Fire Control system will acquire the target, then accurately point and fire the laser with sufficient energy to destroy the missile.

The TRW laser will use common industrial chemicals (such as hydrogen peroxide, chlorine and iodine) to create ABL's lethal beam. Its fundamental building block is the Laser Module (LM). The "engine" of the onboard laser, the LM generates power in the multi-hundred kilowatt range; several LMs will be linked together in series to achieve the megawatt-class power needed by ABL. The demonstration unit of the first LM produced 110% of its design output power in performance tests. Built of advanced, lightweight materials, the laser is designed for simple, safe theater operations and maintenance.

TRW has been designing, developing and producing advanced laser technology since 1961. TRW produced the world's first high energy chemical laser and the nation's only megawatt class chemical lasers, MIRACL and Alpha. The company develops a wide range of chemical lasers (deuterium fluoride, hydrogen fluoride, oxygen iodine), diode-pumped solid-state lasers and excimer lasers for force defense against a broad spectrum of missile threats.

Depending on the range, a SCUD may well go exoatmospheric for a significant portion of the trajectory. That said, the real worry is over cruise missiles and other non-ballistic means of munitions delivery. More than simple kinectic kill systems are needed to create truly comphrensive air defenses. The US as it stands are woefully inadequate on all fronts in this regard simply because no one has ever seriously accounted for a massive or even significant but limited attack on CONUS. Ignorance is bliss...