[MilCom] Officials Map Out Test Milestones for Airborne Laser - Yahoo! News

[GrayGhost]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/space/20060322/sc_space/officialsmapouttestmilestonesforairbornelaser


Jeremy Singer
Staff Writer
SPACE.com
Wed Mar 22, 9:00 AM ET

The threat of cancellation no longer looms over the     Pentagon's Airborne
Laser (ABL) effort, but senior program officials say they are taking nothing
for granted as they prepare for a missile-intercept demonstration in 2008.


Several clear test milestones have been laid out for the ABL in 2006 so that
senior Missile Defense Agency (MDA) officials will be able to measure its
progress, according to Air Force Col. John Daniels, the ABL's program
director.


The ABL is a Boeing 747 aircraft being equipped with a high-powered chemical
laser to destroy ballistic missiles in their boost phase. Boeing Co. of
Chicago is the prime contactor on the effort.


As envisioned, the aircraft would fly in a figure-eight pattern over an area
deemed a likely site of a missile launch. Onboard infrared sensors would
detect the launch and feed that information into a computer that would
direct the laser turret to point at the ascending missile. The turret would
then fire two lower-powered solid-state lasers--one to track the missile and
one to measure atmospheric distortion--before shooting the high-powered
chemical laser at the target.


The ABL program's inability to meet cost and schedule targets in past years
once made it a candidate for termination. Just prior to his 2004 retirement,
U.S. Air Force Lt. Gen. Ronald Kadish, who was then serving as MDA director,
said the program could be canceled if it did not perform well in initial
flight and ground tests that were scheduled for late in the year.


Those tests were a flight of the aircraft outfitted with the
battle-management and fire-control systems, and a brief firing of the
chemical laser on the ground. Both went smoothly, and the senior MDA
officials have not invoked similar termination threats in relation to any
upcoming ABL test, Daniels said in a telephone interview.


As the 2004 demonstrations approached, markers, called "knowledge points,"
were laid out to ensure that progress on the program--or lack thereof--would
be easy for senior MDA officials and their congressional overseers to gauge,
said Daniels, who took over the program in April 2005. He replaced Brig.
Gen. Ellen Pawlikowski, who now serves as the director of the Air Force's
military satellite communications joint program office.


The ABL program has a budget of $471.6 million in 2006. Knowledge points
laid out for this year include testing of the solid-state lasers for missile
tracking and atmospheric-distortion correction. Ground-based tests of those
lasers are slated to wrap up in August, with flight-testing to take place by
the end of the year, Daniels said.


During the flight test, the lasers will be fired at a military NKC-135
aircraft with a picture of a ballistic missile painted on its fuselage,
according to Greg Hyslop, Boeing vice president and ABL program director.
While these lasers are relatively low powered, the aircraft will be shielded
and the pilots will wear protective goggles, he said.


Also planned for 2006 is the refurbishment of the optical hardware on the
high-power chemical laser for a new round of ground testing in 2007, Daniels
said.


That hardware has been used extensively over the past 18 months and the
military plans to thoroughly clean and inspect it to ensure it is ready for
the next series of tests and then 2008 intercept, Daniels said.


MDA has requested $631 million for the ABL effort in 2007. During that year
the MDA plans to install the refurbished chemical laser hardware on the 747
aircraft, and run ground tests to prepare for the 2008 intercept
demonstration, Daniels said.


Air Force Lt. Gen. Henry "Trey" Obering, the MDA's current director, has
indicated that the 2008 demonstration likely will factor heavily into a
decision on whether to continue with the ABL program beyond then. The ABL
has been positioned as a competitor to the Kinetic Energy Interceptor, a
boost-phase missile defense system slated for a flight test in 2008, and MDA
officials have indicated that only one of the programs may be funded over
the long term.


Daniels said an operational ABL fleet ultimately could consist of seven
aircraft.


When it submitted its 2006 funding request to Congress last year, the MDA
said it was planning to begin design work on a second ABL aircraft in 2007.
The plan accompanying the budget submission for 2007 delays that work to
2009 to take advantage of the lessons learned from the intercept
demonstration, Daniels said.


If the 2008 demonstration is successful, it likely would be followed by
attempts to shoot down longer-range missiles, Daniels said.


Other work that could follow a successful 2008 intercept demonstration could
include testing the ABL against other airborne targets, and possibly using
the system to track space debris, Hyslop said during a March 10 briefing for
reporters.