Boeing fires high-energy laser aboard advanced tactical laser aircraft

Remember Ronald Reagan’s vision of making nuclear weapons “impotent and obsolete” (his words, circa March 1983) by creating a defensive line in the sky which would stop these missiles in their tracks? A key component of the defensive line was supposed to be powerful lasers mounted on space platform loitering in lower space: when space- and ground-based sensors would identify the launch of a Soviet missiles, a powerful laser beam would destroy the missile from thousands of miles away. Twenty-five years and more than $120 billion later, the ambitious concept has yet to be realized. Still, more modest laser scheme are moving forward. Boeing has fired a high-energy chemical laser aboard a C-130H aircraft in ground tests for the first time, achieving a milestone for the Advanced Tactical Laser (ATL) Advanced Concept Technology Demonstration program. The successful laser firing occurred 13 May at Kirtland Air Force Base in New Mexico. “First firing of the high-energy laser aboard the ATL aircraft shows that the program continues to make good progress toward giving the warfighter an ultra-precision engagement capability that will dramatically reduce collateral damage,” said Scott Fancher, vice president and general manager of Boeing Missile Defense Systems.

After conducting a series of additional laser tests on the ground and in the air, the program will fire the chemical laser in-flight at mission-representative ground targets. The test team will fire the laser through a rotating turret that extends through the aircraft’s belly. “Later this year, we will fire the laser in-flight at ground targets, demonstrating the military utility of this transformational directed energy weapon,” Fancher said. Last year, the high-energy laser concluded laboratory testing at Kirtland, demonstrating reliable operations in more than fifty firings. ATL, which Boeing is developing for the U.S. Department of Defense, will destroy, damage, or disable targets with little to no collateral damage, supporting missions on the battlefield and in urban operations. Boeing’s ATL industry team includes L-3 Communications/Brashear, which made the laser turret, and HYTEC Inc., which made various structural elements of the weapon system.