The Airborne Laser last night began more tests of longer duration, according to briefers with The Boeing Co. [BA], Northrop Grumman Corp. [NOC] and Lockheed Martin Corp. [LMT].
While “first light” testing of the airborne missile defense system involved seven very brief laser firings of less than a second each over 16 hours of testing Sunday and Monday, longer-duration tests began Tuesday.
“We’ll go back into tests tonight” which will involve “longer duration” firings of the laser, said Mike Rinn, Boeing ABL vice president and program director. He was joined in the briefing by Guy Renard, ABL program manager with Northrop, and Mark Johnson, ABL program director with Lockheed.
The repeated successes thus far in the ABL program come as Congress is debating funding for missile defense programs, and for defense agencies overall. Some lawmakers want to cut development funding for ABL, saying it is still in development. They would put more money instead into established missile defense programs that already are fully funded.
Rinn said he has concerns that ABL, which has progressed so well and has “so much momentum now,” could be set back if funding for the program is cut. That would “be a shame,” he said.
ABL needs the $421 million that President Bush requested for the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, 2009, he said. “Every dollar of that is very important,” he added.
The ABL involves a heavily-modified 747-400 freighter aircraft contributed by prime contractor Boeing, a laser system provided by Northrop, and a beam control/fire control system by Lockheed.
Unlike most other missile defense systems, ABL will be able to knock down enemy missiles, including long-range threats, in their initial boost phase of flight, when the enemy weapon is most vulnerable.
Rinn also cited the need to move on to purchasing a second ABL aircraft. That’s because there are very few suppliers — “a very fragile industrial base” supporting the existing aircraft — for some highly technical, unusual components of the ABL system, especially in the Lockheed beam control/fire control area, according to Johnson. There are but one or two suppliers able to provide some items in the ABL system, such as mirror coatings.
While outright cuts to the ABL program funding would be harmful, a congressional move to adopt a continuing funding resolution instead of a regular budget would have less damaging impact on ABL, Rinn indicated.
“They’re never good,” he said of CRs. But still, a CR will not have “a major impact on us.”
There is a growing realization in Congress that ABL is moving along well, and that the development program has “momentum,” he said.
Rinn reviewed what critics have said about ABL over the years, such as predicting that ABL would never have a working laser, or that it couldn’t be mounted on an aircraft. Other critics have said the laser beam (a light beam) couldn’t be properly aimed.
And, he noted, every one of those predictions has been proven wrong.
The tests last night will lead into other tests, including a plan to shoot the laser beam through the beam control/fire control mechanism in the nose of the plane. That test is set for sometime next month or in November, which will be conducted in a hangar at Edwards.
Then there will be tests in flight in the spring, when the laser will be fired into open sky, followed later next year by the first time the ABL aircraft will shoot down a missile in flight. That critical test is needed to show that critics were wrong, and a laser mounted on an aircraft actually can defend the United States against enemy missiles.
One critical point is that the ABL program has proven that the laser fuel can last as long as required for a typical mission, briefers said.