Pentagon's 747 Raygun Botches Another Test

Friday, 22 October 2010 15:34

Pentagon's 747 Raygun Botches Another Test

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I think I speak for the entire staff of Danger Room — and a good chunk of its readers, too — when I say that I would love America to have a foolproof flying laser cannon blasting missiles out of the sky. Unfortunately, the closest thing

the United States has at the moment, the Airborne Laser Test Bed, isn’t quite living up to our fantasies.

In testing Thursday off the central California coast, the raygun-equipped 747 failed to zap its target. That’s the second botched experiment in a row.

The idea “was for the ALTB to destroy a solid-fuel, short-range ballistic missile while its rocket motors were still thrusting,” the Missile Defense Agency says in a statement. “The Terrier Black Brant target missile was launched successfully. Preliminary indications are that the system acquired and tracked the plume (rocket exhaust) of the target, but never transitioned to active tracking. Therefore, the high-energy lasing did not occur.”

The ALTB has had a long, long series of problems — billions over budget, years late, logistical tail endless and its concept of operations muddy, at best. Last year, Defense Secretary Gates took what was supposed to be a fleet of laser jets, and reduced it to a single tester.

But in February, things suddenly started to look up for the tricked-out jumbo jet. The ALTB successfully blasted a missile in mid-flight for the first time. That convinced the Pentagon to add an extra $40 million to the Airborne Laser’s budget for more trials. Missile Defense Agency officials were so psyched, they doubled the range of the next test blast, to 100 miles.

Then, disappointment. After a series of delays, the ALTB’s September trial “ended early when corrupted beam-control software steered the high-energy laser slightly off center, apparently because of a communications software error,” Reuters notes.

The Missile Defense Agency figured they had the problem solved. But, just to be sure, they decided to reduce the ALTB’s October test back to 50 miles.

That didn’t work out so well, either. The MDA says its examining “the intermittent performance of a valve within the laser system.” Meanwhile, the rest of us wait for our raygun.

Photo: MDA

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Authors: Noah Schachtman

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