Back to Drawing Board for Air Bourne Laser

It appears that they cannot pack enough power into the 747 to making the system viable at the ranges needed so the ABL is being handed over by the Missile Defense Agency to the US air force for general research use.

ABL will be used for more tests this year, but the MDA's latest budget documents reveal it will devote the rest of its "directed energy research" budget towards a new kind of laser yet to even escape the research lab.

New Scientist Article



[edit on 23-2-2010 by Popeye]

Damn, are those the 747s that fly normal citizens around? that would be so cool if it was!

"attention everyone, um missles are headed our way, but don't worry, WE HAVE LASERS!!!"

This laser only has a range of 135 km. That is not very reassuring as a safety measure for multiple incoming ICBMs. Or even one for that matter. The 747 is not as fast as a ICBM. And to position the 747 within 140 km of a incoming ICBM is probably not all that dandy either.

Now I know people can make some petty bonehead mistakes, but it seems pretty big to not have realized after deciding what could fit in the plane, what the power output at distance would be.

It doesn't seem like the program can honestly provide what its selling anytime soon.

Or since this is a conspiracy theory board ...

What if they are just putting out dis-info to get the press and public to quit paying attention?

Tell me that's NEVER happened before ...

Interesting that the weapon shoots down 2 missiles, but suddenly it doesn't work well? And someone posted something about "how could they get that wrong?". Now, does it really sound that likely that they really did get the calculations wrong?

This is the chemical based laser. It is big and bulky.

I believe that the more promising laser is a digital version.

Here's a Link

Originally posted by centurion1211
Or since this is a conspiracy theory board ...

What if they are just putting out dis-info to get the press and public to quit paying attention?

Tell me that's NEVER happened before ...

Interesting that the weapon shoots down 2 missiles, but suddenly it doesn't work well? And someone posted something about "how could they get that wrong?". Now, does it really sound that likely that they really did get the calculations wrong?

It is not a question of the laser and targeting system actually working, but that it does not have the range/power specified, if you read the article it says they originally specified 8-14 power cells for the laser, but could only ever fit 6 on the 747 - so they were always underpowered.

My guess is that they continued with the project to test the system as a whole, i.e. the tracking and targeting system, now they have been proved they will focus on developing a laser technolgy that is small enough with sufficient power - once this is done they can dust off the tracking/targeting system from the ABL and use that with the new laser.

In the meantime the air force have new toy to play with problaby to see if it can be used tactically - imagine ABL flying in internation airspace off a hostile country targeting fuel storage tank at airfields 100km away.

reply to post by Popeye


My point is that for many people here, every story put out by the military is suspect EXCEPT this one.

That alone is suspect to me.

Well, the DoD giveth and the DoD taketh away.

Boeing will probably not get an order for a bunch of ABL aircraft; on the other hand, today the Northrop-Grumman/EADS team dropped out of the tanker competition, giving Boeing a clear shot at the $35 billion procurement with its KC-67 w00t w00t.

Thats a nice amount loose change to have incoming.

March 9 (Bloomberg) -- European Aeronautics, Defense & Space Co. Chief Executive Officer Louis Gallois said his decision to abandon the $35 billion U.S. Air Force Tanker bid is final, as some European politicians suspected local favoritism.

“I don’t see any opportunity to come back alone or with others,” Gallois told journalists at a press conference in Paris today, a day after partner Northrop Grumman Corp’s retreat from the process forced EADS to follow. “If Northrop makes the analysis that we cannot win, I don’t think we can say that we will do it alone.”

www.businessweek.com...

Here in the UK there was a really interesting and revealing documentary about the USA's airborne laser, i believe the unit went by the motto "peace through light" with a snake on there patch. it showed the bulky chemical laser on board the 747 i believe it was a liquid iodine and fluoride? laser.
very unstable and very big.it did shoot a RC drone down

on the doc it showed a MASSIVE ground based laser at a top secret base! it was so big you could crawl around the optic chamber! they would not say what the power was except it was VERY POWERFUL.

they also went into adaptive optics, a bendy mirror with scratches to replicate cloud cover, this enabled the laser to stay focused really tightly.

also there was a guy who had learnt how to propel a small craft with pulses shot at the underside of its rim where the laser acted as the propulsion medium

i believe it was one of the HORIZON series i still have it on VHS tape i consider it a 1st class documentary on lasers.

Originally posted by Popeye
It appears that they cannot pack enough power into the 747 to making the system viable at the ranges needed so the ABL is being handed over by the Missile Defense Agency to the US air force for general research use.

In other words it's a GO.


The system works and they have a viable weapon system that needs to leave the public view and headlines. They have been working on it since the 80s The system works and works fine. Now it's simply going publicly offline.

A team at NASA in the mid-nineties was working on a satellite-based laser system to destroy sub-centimeter space junk. They were trying to develop a system that had a powerful enough laser that could be powered by a small onboard reactor. I think they ultimately abandoned the idea of a space based laser because the power plant they'd need would be of such a size to violate certain agreements they'd made on nuclear fuel in orbit. It's a pity because clearly a successful system for ABM or space junk needs to be space based.

John