ABL Team Argues For More Testing Funds
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By Michael Bruno
Airborne Laser (ABL) industry executives are suggesting even more money in the FY ’10 Pentagon budget request and beyond is needed to fully prove their program’s military effectiveness, despite high-level Defense Department actions lately downgrading the embattled missile defense effort.
In a teleconference with reporters June 17, Boeing ABL Program Director Mike Rinn stressed that the Boeing-led industry team would like the opportunity and funding to show what they are convinced is ABL’s wider application. “We’re interested in going beyond the boost phase,” he said. “We see tremendous potential in what we’re doing.”
Still, Rinn acknowledged that a future ABL fleet, if pursued, may not resemble the modified Boeing 747-400 freighter that serves as the test aircraft now. A key challenge would be adapting the massive chemical oxygen iodine laser (COIL) to another platform, particularly one smaller than the 747, as defense officials have suggested since Defense Secretary Robert Gates announced this spring that the program was being limited to a research effort (Aerospace DAILY, June 12).
Rinn said the erstwhile Tail 2, or second aircraft, which Gates is sidelining, was expected to help cut some weight and other aspects of the COIL.
But that was also eyed as a five-year effort, if not longer, in part because of the time it takes to build what was planned to be a 747-800. Rinn said the longer a Tail 2 is delayed, the more worried executives get about program suppliers disappearing. And a leap ahead in technology to shrink the COIL for an aircraft a fraction of the 747 was “probably not” going to happen, Rinn explained.
Meanwhile, the first of four congressional committees to weigh in on ABL’s future has sided with the Obama administration’s moves and 2010 request for $187 million. The House Armed Services Committee, controlled along with all of Congress by the Democrats, rejected several conservative members’ efforts to boost funding for ABL and other revamped missile defense programs like the intercontinental Ground-based Midcourse Defense system.
In their committee markup this week, Republicans said the technology needed to be pursued for its potential military requirement. Democrats responded that that is what they are doing by following Gates’ recommendation, and that nearer-term and theater-based threats need to be better addressed.
Photo: Northrop Grumman
