Military technologyRussia revives cold war-era raygun air fleet
Pravda reports that the Russian military has revived a cold war-era project: mounting lasers on large transport planes; the Obama administration, after concluding that airborne lasers would not be effective as a boost-phase defense against ballistic missiles, has downgraded the program; it appears that Russia, too, does not intend for the airborne lasers to be used as ballistic missile defense, but rather use them to blind satellites or spy planes
Reports suggest that Russia has restarted work on a cold war-era project intended to produce a laser cannon mounted on a large military transport aircraft in the style of the U.S. Airborne Laser Testbed 747 (see “Second test of U.S. jumbo-mounted raygun delayed by technical problem,” 19 August 2010 HSNW).
Pravda reports the development, saying that the Russian military raygun program was started in 1980 but then mothballed in the 1990s when funds became tight. Now, however, it is said to have been restarted.
Lewis Page writes that although Pravda does not specify the name of the program, it does state that the weapon system is carried aboard a modified Ilyushin-76 heavy transport: this suggests that the report refers to the Beriev A-60 program of the 1980s and 1990s. The A-60 supposedly mounted a one-megawatt gas laser.
Page notes that normally a Pravda report would not carry much weight, but photos apparently taken earlier this year seem to show that at least one A-60 is flying again after fifteen years in mothballs. There was also an Interfax report to the same effect earlier last month.
Pravda seems unsure whether the revived A-60 is intended primarily for blinding long-range enemy sensors — for instance, those on satellites or reconnaissance aircraft — or for use along the same lines as the U.S. formerly planned Airborne Laser (ABL) fleet. The ABL was intended to cruise near hostile missile fields and beam, and destroy, enemy ICBMs during their boost phase, as they climbed through the atmosphere.
This boost-phase attack on ballistic missiles might have been practical if a U.S. laser-jumbos were patrolling off the North Korean coast, but it would be difficult, if not impossible, to protect ABLs on station within range of Iranian missile silos, to say nothing of doing so in close proximity to Russian or Chinese air space. In any event, the Obama administration has decided it was not interested in an ABL fleet and has downgraded the project into a research effort, and the name of the project was accordingly changed to Airborne Laser Testbed, or ALTB (“Obama administration slashes ballistic missile defense funds,” 20 April 2009 HSNW). It is believed to have multi-megawatt power, several times more powerful than the A-60s.
The same criticism directed at the U.S. idea of using lasers as a ballistic missile boost-phase defense is directed at Russia’s revived raygun craft. “You must understand that we will have to deliver this laser through the airspace of the United States,” Russian defense analyst Igor Korotchenko tells Pravda.
“Clearly, all our aircrafts will be shot down.”
“It seems relatively unlikely that the Russian military has actually revived the A-60 for the purpose of swatting down boosting U.S. missiles — the idea that it might instead blind satellites or spy planes is much more credible,” Page concludes. “Particularly in the case of satellites, having the laser high above most of the atmosphere would make it much more effective.”
