strategy for directed energy capabilities

Date: Nov 13, 2004

strategy for directed energy capabilities

Date: Nov 29, 2004

http://www.aviationnow.com/awin/awin_awst/awin_awst_story.jsp?issueDate=2004-11-29&story=xml/awst_xml/2004/11/29/AW_11_29_2004_p58-01.xml

Flight Testing

High-Energy Laser Poses Flight Test Challenges

Aviation Week & Space Technology

11/29/2004, page 58

William B. Scott

Edwards AFB, Calif.

Airborne Laser test team ventures into uncharted territory

Zapping Missiles

While the Airborne Laser test program brings a list of unprecedented challenges, it's also viewed as an opportunity to create a U.S. center for evaluating directed-energy weapon systems.

Very little about testing a missile defense laser here fits the mold of traditional Air Force Flight Test Center (AFFTC) programs, though. From organizing a test force to devising meticulous safety procedures, the government-contractor team is blazing new trails.

To simulate a high-altitude environment, the ABL program built a massive spherical Ground Pressure Recovery Assembly that can be linked by large ducts to a nearby lab or the 747 test aircraft.

"This is an area we've never been in, and I'm sure there'll be a few surprises," says Maj. Gen. Wilbert D. Pearson, Jr., former AFFTC commander. "Once that pulse of light is fired, it doesn't stop until it's absorbed by something or dissipates in space. We're being very conservative, because the amounts of energy involved in generating and emitting the laser are huge. But as a tester, my concern is that we'll be so conservative we'll never get to the real test."

"The biggest thing that strikes me is [ABL] hasn't been a system delivered to Edwards for testing, like an F/A-22, for example," notes Lt. Col. Alex Dodd, director of the ABL Integrated Test Force (ITF) here. "Edwards [AFB] tends to develop an airframe to deliver weapons or cargo. This is not [such] a classical program. The first [ABL] is being built here. Edwards is developing a weapon that happens to be on an airplane; the airframe is incidental to the program."

Located in a former B-2 hangar, the ABL team is separated from most test squadrons on base. That may be appropriate because the ITF is unique. Three contractors--Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman--are responsible for ensuring ABL performs as intended. Under a Total System Performance Responsibility contract, the companies are mandated to deliver a specified level of ABL performance--yet none is the prime contractor.

Edwards' AFFTC is the designated "primary participating test organization," but has no authority over contractors. It is the Missile Defense Agency's agent for development flight testing. Because AFFTC runs the program's safety review board, it has the final word on technical and flight-test safety.

Contractor, system program office and Edwards personnel are working "with no clear chain of command, so we have a true teaming effort," Dodd says. Conflict occurs, but not often. "Most of the time, [we can reach an agreement]. Yes, it's done by committee, but usually the best overall solution [emerges]." The ITF operates as a meritocracy, and "the person most qualified for the job is put in charge of that job. For example, in the SIL [systems integration lab], we have both government and contractor test conductors."

During shakedown flights following modifications to the Boeing 747 ABL airframe, the team wrestled with melding substantially different testing philosophies and procedures. "But we've gotten well past that," Dodd assures. "We have a single process, everybody's using the same test procedures, and we have a single chief of flight test--John Parks of Boeing."

ABL tests will be "more of a characterization type of flight testing or [meshing] of philosophies--what you might do in a lab [combined] with what you'd do in a flight test," says Stephen A. Coulombe, a technical advisor to the ITF. "A system as complex as ABL is almost [impossible] to understand at the full system-performance level, unless you've taken time to understand [the] subsystems."

Key issues for the ITF include:

*Meticulous ground tests, initially using a low-energy laser to verify beam paths and control systems operation before the high-energy chemical oxygen-iodine laser (COIL) is fired (AW&ST Nov. 22, p. 29).

*Ensuring aircraft and Earth-orbiting spacecraft are well clear of the 1.315-micron-wavelength, high-energy laser beam. A national laser clearinghouse will dictate where, when and for how long the ABL can fire, and the beam will always be pointed upward.

*Ensuring ABL fits well into MDA's complex systems-of-systems testing, and can pass missile defense data and control to other elements.

*Handling large quantities of chemicals required to operate the laser. A mixing facility near the test force's hangar safely stores and moves chlorine gas, ammonia, iodine and hydrogen peroxide, then properly disposes the depleted residue. Processes have been approved by federal, state and local authorities, and the final products are clean enough to release into Edwards' waste water treatment plant. In fact, they're too clean.

"We've been asked by waste treatment engineers to add dog food to the waste stream, because the water's so clean that we're disrupting the [plant's] natural bacteria--the bio bugs," Dodd says. "They have difficulty living in such clean water."

Date: Feb 22, 2005

Can't remember the technical name, but what about 'squirt bombs'? One of the results of the Orion research, (or was it parallel research that helped?) they were basicaly pulse units minus the plastic, so you get a directed radiation stream instead of a plasma stream. 'Squirt bombs' require the use of two bombs, one is the pulse unit, and the other is a neutron bomb that acts as the trigger. I don't remember all the details, but most of the designs produced high energy x-ray or gamma ray laser pulses, tho some variants with plastic acted as particle cannons.

And the good thing about these were that they were tunable, over a small range, without having to modify the hardware. Thus if the opponents are hardenning their equipment, (costly considering the amount of energy) a different frequency or waveform could be used without having to send the bombs back to be rebuilt.

I think some of the variants were considered for sdi, and they were used in "Footfall". (Jerry Pournelle was on one of the commisions that was pushing for some of these more interesting methods for sdi, and he liked the Orion idea) www.jerrypournelle.com has lots of nifty space stuff if you look for it, tho he is currently concentrating on just getting us out there by any means possible.

Date: Feb 22, 2005

Thanks for the informative website--I too am a fan of Jerry Pournelle and his "Chaos Manor!"

The squirt bombs you refer to are in the general category of Directed Energy Weaponry which I believe were first explored late in the 1970's but pursued substantially after that--I don't have an exact timeline (it's probably classified.) Various schemes for nuclear pumped lasers have been proposed, but by far the simplest one isn't even really a laser: but it is terribly powerful!

If you are familiar with a Teller-Ulam configuration wherein a primary (this is the boosted fission bomb which provides the energy to heat and compress the h-bomb which is the secondary) and a secondary are within a cylindrical 'radiation bottle' whose outer shell is composed of a high-z material, usually depleted uranium. High-z materials are opaque to thermal xrays emitted by the fireball from the primary. The radiation channel--the 'empty' space between the primary and the secondary is filled with a polyethylene foam. Now instead of a secondary and instead of a cylindrical radiation channel, one could make a thick bundle of long, thin glass tubes lined with a thin film of high-z materials. The straws could allow you to channel and collimate a rather intense pulse of thermal xrays. Such a beam ought to be pretty powerful. This is not a laser however, because the spectrum of radiation is not coherent.

Another device which uses rods of lanthinum chloride could be stimulated to lase in the x-ray spectrum because of the transitions of deep-shell electrons--this device would actually be a laser (for a few hundred nano seconds) which ought to have pretty decent collimation if the length to width ratio is large. (You can't use optics in the traditional sense with x-rays, only grazing incidense mirrors.)

Orion basically uses the radiation bottle concept to channel thermal x-rays at a dense ablater--such as a manhole cover sized chunk of tungsten, say maybe three inches thick. This plate would be the propellant. The ablation of the bomb-side of the plate drives the other side of the plate like a rocket. It is accelerated by an ablation driven shock, which vaporizes the rest of the plate. If the pulse unit is designed properly then a relatively cool jet of tungsten vapor will slam into the pusher plate with fairly uniform pressure. Tweaking the design of the pulse unit could give a Gaussian or 'double Gaussian' momentum distribution across the radius of the plate. A 'double Gaussian' distribution might be harder to achieve, but it'll take it easy on the ejection tube that feeds through the pusher plate. This 'tweak' was never discussed in Geroge Dyson's book on Orion, probably because such fine tuning of the pulse units represent rather advanced techniques of the craft of nuclear bomb design--which I am certain is all still nicely classified.

Date: Feb 24, 2005

Chaos Manor does have lots of interesting info.

I was refering to the pulse unit plasma beam when I mentioned the particle accelerator versions of the squirt bombs. Squrit bomb is a rather wide heading that includes bombs that Las (producing coherent laser beams in whatever freqencyis chosen), ones that just put out a bunch of radiation, but aren't actually lasers, particle accelerator bombs, which can be plasma emiters, ion cannons, or kinetic energy slug launchers (basically a mini orion with the bomb attached to the vehicle to produce extremely high velocity shrapnel).

And if I remember right, most of these were at least partly based on research for the pulse units for Project Orion, which are infact one of the sub cattegories of squirt bombs.

Date: Feb 24, 2005

Yeah, I'm not really sure which came first: the chicken or the egg, so to speak. But there is a relative lack of detail regarding the configuration of the Orion pulse units, and the declassified papers suggested that the pulse units, being a key piece of technology, recieved a lot of detailed attention. The ability to make a nuclear blast directional--a nuclear version of a Monroe shaped charge--could have very important consequencies, unfortunately all weapons related. This is why there is surprising declassified detail regarding Orion, but many aspects are like staring into a Black Hole: something is there, but you just can't see it!

There is a report, which I have not yet procured, which supposedly details many aspects of so called "Forth Generation Nuclear Weapons." Infact, it is available from INESAP (International Network of Engineers and Scientists Against Proliferation) as Technical Report No. 1: The Physical Principles of Thermonuclear Explosives, Inertial Confinement Fusion, and the Quest for Forth Generation Nuclear Weapons

This report is available in hardcopy form for 25 euros and about $20 airfreight.

The website where this paper is at:

http://www.inesap.org/publ_tech.htm

Date: Feb 24, 2005

'Footfall' (hard sf Niven/Pournelle) had some info, as did 'A Step Farther Out' (real science Pournelle). www.jerrypournelle.com unfortunately doesn't include much on construction, (not safe) tho it has a lot of links if you're willing to dig through several years worth of mail and view archives. lol

I trust Pournelle to have some truth in his stuff, since he has PhD's (9 if I remember right) in that sort of stuff, and used to work on several advisory commities trying to push for space colonization/exploration.

It might help if you try some combined or overlap searches. Several of the weapon aspects were shunted over to SDI. And some are still mentioned obliquely in other texts. One old reference I can't quite remember was describing "current" work on ion cannons/particle accelerators, and had some pretty detailed descriptions and diagrams about how they worked, unfortunately, the section form the bomb was just a black box marked something along the lines of "modifed nuclear pulse warhead" since the other parts weren't blacklisted at the time.

Date: Feb 24, 2005

I enjoyed all of Larry Niven's and Jerry Pournelle's works--they put a lot of thought and care into each one of their stories.

I'll check out the Pournelle work you referred to--I seem to have 'missed' that one!

There is quite a lot of declassified information out there--some I would consider to be surprisingly sensitive (I woudln't have declassified some things that are floating around out there, but that's just me!) No telling how much disinformation has been released just to cover up facts, figures or diagrams that may get a little too close to the real thing....

There was an anectdotal story/rumor (I can't remember the source--it was a long time ago) that during the 1970's the Soviets were experimenting or developing a ground based particle beam weapon that used small nuclear explosions in a chamber that vented through a huge magnetohydrodynamic generator that converted the bomb plasma into gigantic pulses of electricity. The bomb/reactor MHD unit was coupled to some kind of energy storage system, perhaps a capacitor bank or perhaps an array of superconducting magnets, and this was in tern connected to a particle accelerator. It's possible the MHD was directly coupled to the accelerator which would probably be more efficient. Anyways, the thing was thought to be able to shoot down several satellites in a single bomb blast. Such a device is possible, in principle, the problems of controlling the plasma stream to generate a pulse of current, and then tapping that current for a particle accelerator seems a little far fetched. The whole thing could have just been a Cold War 'bluff'--a paper tiger if you will. Who knows?

All I know is that the US has possessed nuclear weapons for 60 years---and with the help of vast supplies of money, some of the best minds in the world, huge computer systems, leads me to think that they probably have explored many different avenues of nuclear explosives. No doubt many such avenues involve directed energy weaponry. Some of those applications, no doubt, could be quite useful for a future Orion craft.

Date: Feb 24, 2005

'A Step Farther Out' is in the non-fiction section, its really just a collection of papers and lectures by Pournelle, but it is impressive. It is also amusing, since most of the lectures were given at liberal colleges, he gave most of them from the point of view that if the envirnonmentalists were really telling the truth about what they wanted, then space almost the only answer, and definitely the best answer to their 'problems'. And he did a very good job at shooting holes through their arguments and 'solutions' as well as showing that even if the 'problems' they claim really did exist, space still provided the best answer.

Thought the bomb/mhd part was supposed to be ours. The weapon you are describing used a "zero poin energy generator" and worked quite well, in test firings. to the best of my knowledge, no one ever managed to find out for sure what those mysterious generators in the spy pics were, and the site was dismantled, so no one can check up on the stuff. The main thing is that the rumors were much deeper back when the stuff was still around, not that I was there, but I do a lot of my research offline in old hardcopy.

And yes, thats why they were mentioned in 'Footfall', not as tunable as the snouts continous beam lasers, but much more powerful. Tho for obital (why is it called that when you're shooting at the ground?) bombardment, equiping with something like Thor's Hammer would be much better.

My variant design has a hollow core down as much of the length as possible, lined with (preferably superconducting) magnets, to form a mass driver. This can be used to give loads of metal gravel greater V difference when they hit, or to launch Thor's Hammer. And in peacetime, it can be used for asteroid mining. Collect an asteroid small enough to fit inside, or break one into small enough pieces, close the front hatch so it is 'airtight', turn on the magnets, and start spinning. The magnetic drag, even in nonmetalic asteroids, will start the asteroid spinning, as well as heating it up. After a while the asteroid will sepparate out (probably rather forcefuly) and if you keep up the spinning and the mag fields for a while, you can just siphon off the contents of the asteroid, since you will have turned your Orion into a giant, self-propelled, and heated, centifuge. And this method, (well, he leaves off the Orion in this case) wasn't originally my idea, I just extrapolated further. Jerry Pournelle used that method of mining in his book 'Higher Education'.

Date: May 1, 2005

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Special Report: Missile Defense

Missile Defense Agency Pursuing New Technologies

Aviation Week & Space Technology

05/02/2005, page 48

Amy Butler

Washington

Directed energy is just one of many technologies being developed for missile defense

The Speed Of Light

The Missile Defense Agency is feverishly developing an array of technologies to intercept missiles headed for the U.S., although the Bush administration appears to have backed off of its grandiose plans to quickly pronounce the high-profile, ground-based, U.S. missile defense shield operational.

The administration continues to warn about the proliferation of missile technology in countries like Iran and North Korea, and government officials stress the twofold intent of the missile defense program to: destroy any missile launched toward the U.S., and to deter aggressors from building future technology owing to the system's anticipated reliability.

Among the high-end developing technologies is the $7.3-billion Airborne Laser (ABL) system, and Boeing is planning a relay mirror system demonstration that could potentially boost the range of the 747-based laser platform. Missile Defense Agency (MDA) chief USAF Lt. Gen. Henry (Trey) Obering has also said the agency wants the option of a space-based layer for the system along with the sensors already in development.

The agency says national policy has caught up with its technology work since the Bush administration took office. In late 2001, the U.S. notified Russia that it was backing out of the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty that had prevented the government from actively defending national territory against intercontinental ballistic missiles except for the capital region and domestic ICBM sites. Furthermore, mobile systems such as the Aegis sea-based, midcourse defense system and ABL were prohibited under the deal, as were high-speed interceptor missiles like the SM-3 now used in Aegis system flight tests.

However, disappointing results on a series of high-profile trials of the ground-based midcourse system seem to have put the Pentagon on the defensive. The ground-based element includes an array of sensors (including the Aegis system on patrol in the Pacific Ocean), a command-and-control element and interceptors in Alaska and California.

QUESTIONS ABOUT its capabilities came to a head in a January press conference at the Pentagon when reporters asked spokesman Lawrence Di Rita to characterize the status of the system following a lackluster test in December when a software problem shut down a ground-based interceptor in the silo. Di Rita told reporters the fielded equipment provides a "nascent" defense, hardly the enveloping capability sought.

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The Boeing 747-based Airborne Laser is designed to cripple ascending missiles--such as North Korea's two-stage Taepo Dong 1 (left), which was flight-tested over Japan in 1998, and Iran's Shahab-3 (right), a derivative of North Korea's No Dong medium-range missile. Credit: AGENCE FRANCE PRESSE ALE PHOTO

"The system is what it is, and it will get better over time," Di Rita said. "You will have some capability. It is limited. It is not what everybody wishes it may be, perhaps. But, some capability exists while you continue to improve upon the capability of the system." So, did President Bush fulfill his campaign promise of fielding a missile shield by 2004? The Missile Defense Agency maintains that key hardware deliveries made last year facilitate an operational mode for the system if the president chooses to flip the switch. Officials are now in a so-called shakedown period, whereby commanders continuously test the capabilities of the system and refine techniques for its use. Eventually, U.S. Northern Command will operate the system as part of its homeland defense role.

Meanwhile, MDA has been able to point to progressive successes with the Aegis midcourse defense system, which will be an arrangement of sophisticated ship-based radars coupled with the SM-3 missile interceptors. Five of six tests have resulted in missile kills. Five out of 10 attempts have been successful with its ground-based counterpart.

THOSE ARE TWO systems of a multilayered missile defense initiative. ABL and the Kinetic Energy Interceptor (KEI) programs are tackling what could be the most challenging mission: disabling a missile in boost phase--the first 60-300 sec. of flight. Speed is critical for boost-phase defense, and directed energy advocates argue that ABL can more quickly knock out an ascending missile. Both programs are working toward key milestones in 2008, and the agency may opt to pare down to one system if the technology for either proves more reliable.

Directed energy, however, is still a young technology, and the military has yet to incorporate it in its operations. Contractors are beginning work on a next-generation Pentagon project to demonstrate a 25-kw. laser using electrical power. ABL's logistics are unwieldy because the system requires onboard chemicals that must be switched out at least every two weeks. As Boeing pushes ahead with the demonstration of a relay mirror system to enhance ABL's range, company officials acknowledge that the military is only beginning to understand the potential of directed energy and lasers for missile defense.

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Special Report: Missile Defense

ABL Shooting For 2008 Demonstration

Aviation Week & Space Technology

05/02/2005, page 50

Amy Butler

Washington

After years of fits and starts, ABL inches toward a 2008 missile milestone

Looking To Lase

The next three years are critical for the Airborne Laser program, as prime contractor Boeing prepares to install the multimegawatt-class laser components onto a modified 747-400 freighter and flight test the boost-phase missile defense technology.

Successes last year have prompted more upbeat remarks from the U.S. Missile Defense Agency (MDA) following years of wrangling with the underpinning technologies for the Airborne Laser (ABL) program. After a virtual standstill regarding a promised graduation exercise including the shootdown of a Scud-representative missile, MDA now envisions the test for 2008 at the earliest, more than five years later than original plans.

Moreover, MDA Director Lt. Gen. Henry (Trey) Obering has established a flyoff of sorts for boost-phase options, aligning the ABL lethal shoot-down test and milestones for the Kinetic Energy Interceptor (KEI) effort in 2008. The cost of the ongoing occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan is taxing the Pentagon's budget, and investment programs are starting to feel the squeeze. Many observers believe that by 2008 when both programs are set to showcase their capabilities, the Defense Dept. will be forced to choose one.

SCOTT FANCHER, BOEING'S vice president and ABL program manager, says the aircraft is the Pentagon's "most mature" effort to counter missiles in their ascent phase. For years, it was the Pentagon's only option. ABL advocates say the system has the "speed of light" in its favor, allowing it to engage targets more quickly than an interceptor missile. Time is critical for an early shoot down, since the first phase of a missile's flight is usually less than 300 sec.

Obering acknowledges progress in ABL during the past year, although the costly system has much to prove. "The Airborne Laser had some great successes in November, and in December it continued to improve," Obering told reporters during a March teleconference. "That is our primary boost-phase defense path, but it is not out of the woods yet. I can't declare [it] a totally risk free-program."

The system includes a 747-mounted, multimegawatt, high-energy chemical oxygen iodine laser, sophisticated beam-control components and a battle management system for onboard operators. Chemical tanks for the components of the laser are on board. Fancher said those chemicals are good for 14 days before a replenishment is needed unless they are expired during an engagement; that is about twice as long as originally thought. Perhaps the most distinguishing feature of the platform is the bulbous nose turret, which would actually project and direct the laser toward the propulsion systems of missiles as they are boosting. The goal is to destroy or cripple the missile early in flight, spreading the debris over the nation that dispatched it.

Last year, ABL achieved two major milestones, "first light" and "first flight." During the November first light test, the Northrop Grumman-made laser was fired up for a fraction of a second in a ground-based surrogate 747 fuselage during the first test ever of a multi-module chemical oxygen iodine laser. More work on envelope expansion, including boosting power and duration of the laser's operation, will continue, Fancher says.

Officials are working up to a 10-sec. lase in the summer, according to MDA. Further experiments will continue as the ABL platform undergoes modifications at Boeing's Wichita, Kan., facility. The laser components will later be disassembled and reconstructed in the actual ABL airframe next summer.

Philip Coyle, the Pentagon's testing chief from 1994-2001 and a senior adviser to the Center for Defense Information, however, says the results from the first light test are not all glowing. The program's former director said last year after the test that officials observed "fireflies," or sparks, as the laser interacted with dust in the air. While they demonstrate the presence of the laser, Coyle said the fireflies are an indication that much work is needed to ensure the laser does not dissipate and interact with the atmosphere. One challenge is to focus the laser enough to travel over vast spaces and retain enough power to disable the target.

Art Stephenson, vice president of Northrop Grumman Directed-Energy Systems, says cooling is a challenge with any laser development, including ABL. Northrop has also encountered similar challenges on other laser programs; the company has developed the Tactical High-Energy Laser (THEL), a movable system for the Army that can counter mortars and rockets in flight. He says that underpinning technologies for chemical lasers were developed 30 years ago, and the future for directed energy defenses lie in solid-state lasers, which are powered by electricity. A solid-state laser does not entail hauling the weighty chemicals, which require replenishment bi-weekly. While the Pentagon is refining solid-state laser technology with the Joint High-Powered Solid State Laser demonstration, it is still too immature to serve as a near-term solution.

The second milestone was the installation of the Lockheed Martin beam control system and a December flight of the hardware on board the ABL aircraft. Officials conducted airworthiness demonstrations and simulated laser weight while flying at operational speeds and altitudes. "The aircraft flies exactly as we planned it to fly," Fancher says. "Absolutely no problems were found to date with regard to airworthiness." Testing of the beam control/fire controls systems is underway.

Despite reaching those milestones, the program has suffered several restructurings and cost overruns. The Government Accountability Office (GAO), a congressional auditing arm, notes in a recent report that the Pentagon plans to spend about $7.3 billion on ABL from 1996, when it began, through 2011 (the end of the future years' defense plan). That figure includes purchase of the second ABL aircraft, which is slated for Fiscal 2007. As officials design that aircraft, they will attempt to streamline maintenance and incorporate advancements that followed construction of the first aircraft. Among MDA's desires are reduced weight and improved optics to better focus the laser through the atmosphere.

THE GAO NOTES that the Missile Defense Agency reshaped the lethal shootdown test contract with Boeing three times, eventually settling on a demonstration by December 2008. The original contract in 1996 was estimated at about $1 billion, and that value has increased to $3.6 billion. Before realigning the program, Boeing overran its Fiscal 2003 budget by $242 million, the auditors say. In the first half of Fiscal 2004, $114 million of "negative cost variance" accrued, and Boeing could not finish $47 million of planned work. Those overruns, however, were incurred prior to the restructuring. The company now says that it is meeting schedules as outlined in the new plan.

The existing contract has one flaw, however. Although MDA eventually added value and time for the shoot-down, they did not rewrite the contract to allow Boeing to earn an award fee from a 2008 demonstration. The deal remains tied to the original December 2004 plan, GAO says.

The Pentagon requested $465 million from Congress for continued development of the system in Fiscal 2006.

Coyle also questions the wisdom behind focusing the brunt of MDA's Fiscal 2006 cut of $1 billion on the KEI program, the putative competitor to ABL. It aims to produce a high-speed booster capable of intercepting ascending missiles from land or sea. MDA also announced in its Fiscal 2006 budget it is considering basing interceptors in space as an option for the layered defense program. About $800 million was removed from KEI, which forced a complete restructuring of the program. It was scaled back to focus on a booster test that slipped to 2008 and aligned it in lockstep with the ABL lethality test. "That means they don't have a boost-phase program anymore, because ABL sure isn't ready," Coyle says.

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The 747-based ABL is awaiting flight tests at operational altitudes while carrying an integrated battle-management, beam-control and fire-control system, including the massive nose turret that will project the system's powerful laser.Credit: U.S. AIR FORCE

Whether or when the system will be fielded is uncertain. However, some observers question how it would operate in the well-populated airspace. Theresa Hitchens, vice president at the Washington-based Center for Defense Information think tank, asks: "What if they miss?" MDA officials say that operators would carefully construct kill boxes for allowable engagements that would eliminate the chance of hitting unintended targets.

ABL is expected to fly above commercial air traffic, thereby avoiding some of the obvious deconfliction issues.

The Pentagon plans to purchase seven ABL systems in addition to the two R&D test aircraft. Although regional commanders continue to refine their requirements, Air Combat Command (which will eventually operate the system) estimates they will need at least two ABL orbits, or aircraft continuously circling in a particular area. Each of those orbits would call for at least three aircraft.

SUCCESS WITH ABL could be useful in a variety of other applications, however. Coyle warns that the Pentagon could employ ABL against satellites, although using weapons in space is a highly contentious issue on Capitol Hill and in the international community.

The system could also go up against surface-to-air missiles and serve in a "self-protection" role against any airborne threat it can reach.

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Special Report: Missile Defense

Boeing Plans SDI-Type Mirror System

Aviation Week & Space Technology

05/02/2005, page 51

Amy Butler

Washington

Boeing plans an SDI-type mirror system demonstration to boost laser range

Over the Horizon

Boeing is developing an elaborate relay mirror prototype to extend the range of laser weapons against ground targets--like mobile missile erectors--or against incoming ballistic missiles.

The mirrors hearken back to ideas in the Reagan-era Strategic Defense Initiative, the first large-scale effort by the U.S. to build a missile defense shield.

As the prime contractor for the Airborne Laser (ABL) program, Boeing is touting a new technology it calls relay systems that would employ the use of mirrors to direct lasers to targets across vast distances. ABL's laser is expected to be limited to about 200 km. in range.

Initial hardware tests are planned for later this year, range tracking experiments for next year and a shoot-down demonstration "in the outyears," says Scott Fancher, vice president and general manager of Boeing's ABL program.

The relay mirrors would be placed on airships or high-flying unmanned aerial vehicles or launched into space, Fancher says. Those systems would be located well above the atmosphere where civil air traffic travels and more particles are likely to fracture the integrity of a laser beam. Fancher says the relay mirror concept is a "pathfinder" in what he says will be more work to come on perfecting directed energy technologies.

"One thing is clear: the way in which the warfighter will employ these technologies is going to be different than we envisioned in the beginning," Fancher says. "The idea is to get initial technologies out there--get them in the hands of the warfighters and in that evolutionary process of developing the actual method of employment and see where those required capabilities will take you."

Later this year, Boeing plans to hoist a mirror onto a crane at Kirtland AFB, N.M., to simulate the relay capability of an airborne platform. Fancher said plans have not progressed enough to demand construction of a concept demonstrator.

"It looks as though it will be able to begin its initial tests later this year," Fancher says. "It's sophisticated optical equipment and really first-of-a-kind, . . . so we're demonstrating technology and you can run into challenges."

Among those challenges is proving the integrity of the high-tech coatings on the mirror system; they must withstand and reflect an enormous amount of heat to redirect the laser's energy. Furthermore, Fancher says the integrity of the pointing and tracking systems is critical to avoid jitter that could misguide the laser.

WEATHER AND DUST pose problems for the system, as with any laser program.

"It certainly won't be an all-weather system," Fancher says. "Heavy cloud cover will impair its operation. But, that's true of any weapon system. It will have environmental limitations on its range of operations."

Missile Defense Agency (MDA) officials said work on this technology is very new. The mirror concept is not formally linked, for example, with ABL, which is pursuing its own testing regimen. However, Fancher says Boeing officials envision a strategic stock of mirrors around the globe that could be augmented by tactical systems employed on demand.

The relay mirrors could also be used in conjunction with the Advanced Tactical Laser, a Boeing advanced concept technology demonstration program that will place a chemical oxygen iodine laser on a C-130 for use by special operations forces. The laser can produce precise lethal or "less than lethal" effects against a variety of ground targets, Boeing says. Relay mirrors could extend that precision strike capability.

Efforts to lengthen the reach of high-powered lasers are not without criticism, and some observers note that the Pentagon is unlikely to restrict the use of those systems within the atmosphere when they could also be employed through space.

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Boeing's sophisticated relay mirror system, to be tested in the coming months, could be used against a variety of targets, including ground vehicles.Credit: BOEING

Philip Coyle, the Pentagon's testing chief in the 1990s, says he's "skeptical" of the relay mirror concept. "It is a problem to bounce high-powered laser beams around," Coyle says. Beam control could prove extremely difficult, especially if an unmanned aerial vehicle in flight is called upon to redirect a laser beam. Furthermore, Coyle says that power generation is an issue because the source laser must emit at an increasingly higher power level to compensate for the expanded distance traveled.

Placing relay mirrors in space could also expose the U.S. to criticism from other nations that fear an intent to dominate near-Earth space. "We don't own space. It isn't ours," Coyle says. "When senior people in the U.S. military talk about space dominance and space control, it sends a message to the world."

Theresa Hitchens, vice president of the Washington-based think tank the Center for Defense Information, says that the Pentagon may be doing more work in systems like relay mirrors than it acknowledges. At least $260 million is earmarked in the Fiscal 2006 budget for space-based directed energy programs, Hitchens says. Such systems could be used as anti-satellite weapons, she points out, and she warns against embarking on that path. Disabling or destroying a satellite could prove a danger to other nearby spacecraft, for example, or incite a weapons race.

"A satellite that is out of control is a piece of debris," Hitchens says.

She also questions the integrity of a mirror placed in space, a harsh environment for delicate equipment.

Fancher acknowledges that challenges are expected for the program. But the immediate focus is on proving the technology with its prototype, he says.