ABL Boosters Look to Kills for Survival
By Guy Norris and Andy Nativi
Titusville, Fla.
Boeing plans to bolster support for the hard-pressed 747-based Airborne Laser missile defense program by quickly following an upcoming first full-scale missile shoot-down demonstration with laser interceptions of everything from short-range tactical weapons to intercontinental ballistic missiles.
“The intent is to go out and shoot another missile very quickly and demonstrate it’s not a one-shot wonder,” says Boeing ABL program director Michael Rinn. A follow-on contract to the current flight tests will include test shots against a wide range of targets, he asserts. “I’d like to shoot down short-range, intermediate-range, and intercontinental ballistic-range missiles,” Rinn says.
ABL is equipped with a powerful megawatt-class chemical laser designed to defend against hostile ballistic attack. The program began weapon system flight tests in April and was approaching a key missile shootdown exercise when future funding was drastically cut under the Fiscal 2010 budget led by Defense Secretary Robert Gates. These will see the demonstrator relegated to a research-and-development role, while funding for a second ABL, “Tail Two,” has been cancelled.
Boeing believes the shoot-down demos, which will begin with kills of successive short-range ballistic missiles (SRBM), will revive wider military support and alert decision-makers to what Rinn says is a “real and growing threat.” Restoring funding would also help head-off a looming industrial base issue that Boeing says faces the specialist technology companies supporting the ABL and its sophisticated chemical oxygen-iodine laser system. “We are worried about these guys being around, and being available should the nation decide we should go into production,” says Rinn.
When Gates unveiled his broad budget outline April 6, he said it was “highly questionable” that the 747-mounted chemical laser will be able to execute its mission of destroying boosting ICBMs. Still, he and Marine Corps James Cartwright, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said at the time that while the Quadrennial Defense review would help solve some policy questions, they wanted to maintain the R&D pursuit.
Upcoming tests later this month and in June will focus on various knowledge points (KP) in the build-up to the SRBM shootdown. The upcoming KP-08 and 09 tests will be based on a system flight test with a surrogate high energy laser (HEL), followed by an in-flight HEL performance demonstration. KP-10 and KP-11 tests will be conducted between August and October to include a system flight test with the HEL, culminating in the KP-11 shootdown effort.
Rinn described the SRBM as the “graduation exercise.” But he adds the future includes demonstrations of the ABL’s capability against surface-to-air missiles and aircraft targets, as well as fulfilling “shortfalls” in missile defenses overseas in case of a national emergency. These include completing certification of the full aerial refueling capability, and the design of lightweight carts to enable the COIL laser chemicals to be transported aboard a pair of C-17s.
Photo: Northrop Grumman
