The Missile Defense Agency (MDA), Boeing [BA] and its industry teammates on Aug. 18 successfully fired the high-energy laser aboard the Airborne Laser (ABL) aircraft, “the first light in flight,” moving closer toward ABL’s upcoming missile shoot-down demonstration.
MDA is developing the ABL as a future element of the nation’s ballistic missile defense system. It is the first element to use directed energy to destroy ballistic missiles in their boost phase.
Boeing is the ABL prime contractor. Northrop Grumman [NOC] designed and built the Chemical Oxygen Iodine Laser (COIL). Lockheed Martin [LMT] developed the weapon system’s beam control/fire control system and Boeing provided the battle management system.
Under contract with Boeing, the Northrop Grumman COIL laser achieved three firsts in the flight: the first mobile, megawatt-class laser; the first airborne, megawatt-class laser; and as the most powerful laser ever to be operated during an actual flight, Northrop Grumman said in a statement.
During the test, the modified Boeing 747-400F aircraft took off from Edwards AFB, Calif., and fired its high-energy laser while flying over the California High Desert.
The laser was fired into an onboard calorimeter, which captured the beam and measured its power.
“This was a significant test of the Airborne Laser’s capabilities, demonstrating that the system has truly moved from the drawing board to reality,” Greg Hyslop, vice president and general manager of Boeing Missile Defense Systems, said in a statement. “We have seen that the Airborne Laser’s high-energy laser is functioning aboard the aircraft and that ABL is ready for more flight tests to further validate its viability as a mobile missile defense system.”
Maintaining the precise alignment of optical components within the laser while in flight ranks among the program’s notable accomplishments, said Steve Hixson, vice president of Advanced Concepts-Space and Directed Energy Systems for Northrop Grumman’s Aerospace Systems sector. “ABL has to keep all of the powerful laser’s optical components perfectly positioned as the aircraft vibrates and flexes during flight…we had to isolate the COIL’s optics from the structure but also maintain alignment. So the team developed an optical bench isolation system that isolates disturbances caused by normal aircraft operations while maintaining alignment to the gain medium, or the source of a laser’s optical power. It’s like an automobile’s ‘smart suspension’ that keeps the car riding smoothly at the same level over a bumpy road.”
Guy Renard, Northrop Grumman’s ABL program manager, said COIL “operated in flight as if it was planted solidly on terra firma instead of on an aircraft flying hundreds of miles per hour and thousands of feet above ground. Investments in ABL’s leap-ahead technologies are paying off, as this flight proved.”
Michael Rinn, Boeing vice president and ABL program director, said, “This test shows that ABL is on track to shoot down a boosting ballistic missile later this year. After years of development, the team is excited to be so close to delivering this transformational and unique directed-energy weapon system. We think ABL will be a game-changer for weapon systems the same way stealth technology transformed aerial combat.”
Before the upcoming missile shoot-down demonstration, ABL’s high-energy laser will undergo a series of additional flight tests, building toward lethal capabilities. It will advance from being fired into the onboard calorimeter to being sent through the beam control/fire control system, exiting the aircraft through a nose-mounted turret.
This will represent a major achievement in directed-energy technology because it will be the first time a megawatt-class laser has been coupled with precise pointing and atmospheric correction in an airborne environment.
The team will follow this milestone with the firing of the high-energy laser against a variety of increasingly challenging targets, culminating with an airborne intercept test against a ballistic missile in the boost phase of flight.