I would note, however that these were nowhere near full power, and the program has been dropped from the 2010 budget anyway.During the test, the modified Boeing 747-400F aircraft took off from Edwards Air Force Base and used its infrared sensors to find a target missile launched from San Nicholas Island, Calif. The Boeing-developed battle management system aboard ABL then issued engagement and target location instructions to the beam control/fire control system, which acquired the target and fired its two solid-state illuminator lasers to track the target and measure atmospheric conditions. ABL then fired a surrogate high-energy laser at the target, simulating a missile intercept. Instrumentation on the target verified that the surrogate high-energy laser hit the target.(emphasis mine)
I think that this program is a dead end for a number of reasons, the defense draw-down, the rise of the UAV, and the fact that there have been significant advances in high energy solid-state lasers, which makes the chemical technology used by the ABL an expensive, and highly toxic, relic.
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