November 5, 2002 History in the making … Today (1:55 p.m. EST) Army laser destroys artillery projectile in flight
White Sands Missile Range, N.M. – For the first time in history, a laser successfully destroyed an artillery projectile in flight.
Over the desert of New Mexico, at the U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command’s High Energy Laser Systems Test Facility (HELSTF), the Tactical High-Energy Laser (THEL) demonstrator – Mobile THEL (MTHEL) testbed – tracked, locked and fired a burst of photons on an artillery projectile ... seconds later, at a point well short of its intended destination, the projectile was destroyed.
The event occurred as part of a new series of tests to determine MTHEL testbed capabilities. The artillery projectile is only one of the many target sets to be tested.
MTHEL testbed stems from the Tactical High Energy Laser (THEL), an Advanced Concept Technology Demonstration (ACTD) program initiated in 1996. THEL tests during 2000 and 2001, which focused on the threat of rockets, proved highly successful, intercepting and destroying 25 Katyusha rockets.
Though their diameters are nearly the same, the artillery projectile measures about two feet in length rather than the 10 feet of a Katyusha rocket. The artillery projectile’s small size, combined with the lack of heat it gives off, makes it much more difficult to track.
The MTHEL testbed program, managed by the U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command, is a collaborative development program between the U.S. Army and the Israeli Ministry of Defense.
Satellite video footage will be available for downlink. Call for information.
For additional information, please contact the SMDC Public Affairs Office, William Congo at (256) 682-4816; Giselle Bodin at (256) 955-3889 or giselle.bodin@smdc.army.mil ; or Dottie White at (256) 955-1640 or dottie.white@smdc.army.mil.