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The Airborne Laser Testbed (ALTB) faces an uncertain future as both a research project and an operational system even after its 1MW-class chemical laser successfully - and historically - destroyed a ballistic missile off the California coast on 11 February. The long-awaited intercept test proved that the modified Boeing 747-400F's key technology - a chemical oxygen iodine laser (Coil) invented by US Air Force researchers in 1977 - is a lethal weapon against ballistic missiles. A week before the ballistic intercept, the ALTB shot down a Terrier Black Brant, a two-stage sounding rocket that presents faster and smaller target to...

The U.S. Missile Defense Agency’s (MDA) Airborne Laser (ABL) has successfully engaged its first ballistic missile with its powerful chemical laser, shooting it down and demonstrating the concept of using high-powered lasers to destroy such threats in their boost phase of flight. A series of flight tests included engagement of a single liquid-fueled ballistic missile and two solid-fueled Terrier Black Brant sounding rockets. Though not ballistic missiles, the rockets closely mimic a solid-fueled ballistic missile in the boost phase, the period in which ABL is expected to engage. And they offer a lower-cost alternative to launching actual short-range ballistic missile...

A high-energy laser mounted on a US military aircraft has shot down a ballistic missile in the first successful test of the weapon, the US Missile Defense Agency said on Friday. The experiment -- evoking a scene out of a science fiction film -- was carried out off the central California coast at Point Mugu Naval Air Warfare Center at 8:44 pm Thursday Pacific time (0444 GMT), the agency said in a statement. "The Missile Defense Agency demonstrated the potential use of directed energy to defend against ballistic missiles when the Airborne Laser Testbed (ALTB) successfully destroyed a boosting ballistic...

EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. - A U.S. military aircraft, equipped with an airborne laser device, successfully shot down a test missile in the sky off the central California coast Thursday night.The high-energy laser, mounted on the nose of a modified Boeing 747-400F, was focused on the missile target during its boosting phase. The laser beam burned a hole in the side of the missile.It was the first time that a laser weapon has engaged and destroyed an in-flight ballistic missile, and is the first time that any system has accomplished destroyed a missile as it was in its boosting...

It sounds like something from a James Bond movie: a massive satellite, the largest ever launched, equipped with a powerful laser to take out the American anti-missile shield in advance of a Soviet first strike. It was real, though—or at least the plan was. In fact, when Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev walked out of the October 1986 summit in Reykjavik, Iceland, because President Ronald Reagan wouldn't abandon his Strategic Defense Initiative, or SDI, the Soviets were closer to fielding a space-based weapon than the United States was. Less than a year later, as the world continued to criticize Reagan for...

DARPA's HELLADS (High Energy Liquid Laser Area Defense System) will be light enough to fit on a fighter jet or drone aircraft, and yet powerful enough to fire a 150 kilowatt beam of energy. Star Wars laser cannon may be closer than you think. High energy laser weapons already in development are powerful enough to bring down missiles (see MTHEL - Mobile Tactical High Energy Laser). However, their very large size has precluded placement on any but the largest planes. The main weight problem comes from the cooling systems needed. HELLADS makes use of a unique cooling technique to save...

Oct. 28, 2003 Israel, US to fund laser that shoots down rockets By ASSOCIATED PRESS Israel and the U.S. are to spend at least US$57 million for development of a laser cannon that can shoot down short-range missiles, an Israeli legislator and security officials said Tuesday. A recent Israeli delegation successfully lobbied Congress to approve the new funding package for the joint U.S.-Israeli Nautilus laser weapon project, said Israeli lawmaker Yuval Steinitz, who was part of the delegation. Israel wants the Nautilus to help protect its northern border towns from Katyusha rockets, fired by the Lebanese guerrilla group Hizbullah during...