Free Republic

This latest test demonstrates ABL's ability to use both its illuminator lasers to track a simulated target, compensate for atmospheric disturbances, and complete the engagement sequence by simultaneously propagating a surrogate high energy laser to the target aircraft. This latest test, conducted on 24 July, demonstrates ABL's ability to use both it's illuminator lasers to track a simulated target, compensate for atmospheric disturbances, and to complete to engagement sequence by simultaneously propagating a surrogating a surrogate high energy laser to the target.

Lt. General Henry A. “Trey” Obering, Missile Defense Agency director, announced today the successful completion March 15, 2007 of the first in-flight test of the laser targeting system for the Airborne Laser (ABL), a boost-phase missile defense system that is designed to use directed energy to destroy a ballistic missile in the “boost” phase of flight. This important milestone involved multiple firings of the Tracking Illuminator Laser (TILL), mounted inside of the world’s most heavily modified Boeing 747-400 aircraft, to engage a missile-shaped target painted on the side of a KC-135 aircraft nicknamed “Big Crow,” and used as an aerial...