NEWS

The Airborne Laser (ABL), under development by the US Missile Defence Agency and the industry team Boeing, Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin, is making tremendous progress towards providing a rapidly deployable and quick-reaction capability to destroy ballistic missiles in their boost phase of flight, or shortly after they are launched. We stand on the verge of fully demonstrating a revolutionary warfighting capability, said Pat Shanahan, Vice President and General Manager of Boeing Missile Defense Systems in a recent media meet. On June 1, Boeing and the US Missile Defense Agency completed the first laser activation testing for the ABL missile defence programme.

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Imagine this. A military airplane, armed with a laser, blasting hostile ballistic missiles out of the sky. Travelling at the speed of light, the laser beams target the missiles so swiftly that these are destroyed in the boost phase itself while still cruising over enemy territory. Sounds like science fiction? Not anymore.

The ABL programme was initiated by the US Air Force in 1996, but with the emergence of Axis of Evil countries—Iraq, Iran, North Korea—as projected by the US, the programme was transferred in 2001 to the US Missile Defense Agency (MDA) and converted to an acquisition programme. To accomplish its mission of countering threats, the MDA has developed a multifaceted strategy. The weaponry it is developing emphasises hit-to-kill technology. Layered defences address the interception of enemy missiles at different segments in their trajectory such as the boost, midcourse and terminal phases. It is in the boost phase segment, the MDA is trying to acquire the ABL capability to attack and destroy hostile ballistic missiles.

The ABL weapon system consists of a high-energy, chemical oxygen iodine laser mounted on a modified 747-400F freighter aircraft to shoot down theatre ballistic missiles. Incidentally, for the initial development, a retired Air India 747-200 was acquired by the USAF in 2001 and road-transported without its wings from Mojave airport to Edwards Air Base where the airframe was incorporated into the System Integration Laboratory for proving of the concept and groundtesting. A crew of four, including pilot and copilot, would be required to manoeuvre the modified 747-400F, christened Boeing YAL-1 ABL, which would probably operate in pairs at altitudes of about 40,000 ft. Capable of autonomous operation, the ABL would acquire and track missiles in the boost phase of flight, illuminating the missile with a tracking laser beam while computers calculate parameters such as distance, course and atmospheric turbulence to determine the aim-point.