MDA - Smaller Aircraft Tests With ABL Eyed
Click here for more news / Clique aqui para mais notícias
John M. Doyle
The U.S. Missile Defense Agency (MDA) wants to explore putting Airborne Laser (ABL) technology on a smaller aircraft than its current jumbo jet platform, MDA's director said June 11.
The high-powered laser, designed to destroy an attacking missile shortly after launch during the boost phase, currently flies on a modified Boeing 747-400 freighter. Defense Secretary Robert Gates has vetoed the idea of acquiring another 747, saying the existing equipment should first be used as a research and development platform to prove the capabilities of the large laser technology.
"One thing I personally want to do and I know the engineering team has convinced themselves [of], is it can go on a smaller aircraft. So we're looking at that," Army Lt. Gen. Patrick O'Reilly told a Capitol Hill breakfast seminar hosted by the National Defense University Foundation.
The MDA director did not disclose details. A key question will be adapting the chemical oxygen iodine laser (COIL) to another platform, particularly one smaller than the 747. The six COIL modules at the heart of the current ABL's megawatt-class laser each are roughly the size of a Mini Cooper car, and altogether the size of a large sport utility vehicle.
O'Reilly cited the successful test of ABL's tracking system June 6 as evidence of the technology's viability. For the first time while airborne, ABL tracked a boosting missile with lasers that compensated for atmospheric conditions (Aerospace DAILY, June 3).
A test of ABL's ability to strike a missile in flight is not expected before late fall or winter. "I'm not going to allow it to fly until it's ready," O'Reilly said.
O'Reilly took responsibility for two other MDA programs that Gates curtailed in the fiscal 2010 budget request. He said he recommended terminating both the Multiple Kill Vehicle (MKV) and the Kinetic Energy Interceptor (KEI) programs.
MKV, aimed at increasing the chances of knocking down an attacking missile and thwarting its countermeasures, was a long-range research and development program with a capability targeted for around 2020, O'Reilly said. But MDA's focus should be on preventing the deployment of countermeasures rather than reacting to them after they were deployed, he added.
KEI, another boost-phase weapon that would collide with and destroy missiles close to launch, would probably not pass muster with recently enacted defense acquisition reform legislation, O'Reilly said, because not enough advance analysis was done for the program's life cycle. "There were significant integration problems," he added, because of KEI's size. For example, Aegis ships would have to reduce their firepower by 75 percent to accommodate the large interceptor. "And if you didn't put it on a ship, you're very restricted to the use of where you can put it on land," he said. That made KEI "extremely unattractive" for mass defensive launchings, O'Reilly said.
Photo credit: Missile Defense Agency
