I Say "Meh"

Click for full size

---

Pretty pictures, though

In a final gasp on a dead program which has consumed billions of dollars and incurred billions of dollars in cost overruns, Boeing's Airborne Laser (ABL) finally shot down a missile in the ascent phase:

The target was a liquid-fueled short-range ballistic missile. It was tracked within seconds and shot down within 2 min. during a Feb. 11 test off the coast of California. Photos below show infrared of that event.

There were other targets, "solid-fuel Terrier Black Brant sounding rockets," which were lased, but not destroyed.

My guess would be that the other targets were not destroyed because they couldn't be destroyed, a solid fuel rocket motor casing is much harder to burn through than a pressurized liquid fuel tank, because the casing has resistance to heat, and resistance to burn through as basic functions.

This is completely irrelevant, because the chemical laser technology, the a chemical oxygen iodine laser (Coil) is not really deployable. It involves expensive, toxic, and environmentally unfriendly fuel.

Additionally, the range of the system appears to be inadequate: (paid subscription required)

Last year, Defense Secretary Robert Gates squelched hopes of producing a design that incorporates lessons learned from the flying prototype. Criticizing the range of the system, Gates told lawmakers that “ABL would have to orbit inside the borders of Iran in order to be able to try to use its laser to shoot down a missile in the boost phase. . . . If you were to operationalize this, you would be looking at 10-20 747s, at a billion and a half dollars apiece, and $100 million a year to operate.”

This implies to me that the range is something under 300, based on nothing more than games I played with Google™ Maps™.

Additionally, there were failures in subsequent tests:

Analysts are still investigating the cause of a “beam misalignment” during a third engagement, which was executed within 1 hr. of the liquid-fueled target shootdown and without landing or replenishing the chemicals on board ABL. O’Reilly says the misalignment prompted a safe shutdown of the system earlier than planned. Although the destruction of this target—a second Terrier Black Brant—did not take place, test objectives were met, he says. They were “to negate a threat-representative short-range ballistic missile in the boost phase followed by the high-energy engagement of a second target to demonstrate the capability to engage multiple missiles on a single mission.”

Also note that this is not the first intercept of a missile by an airborne laser, that happened in 1984, so the idea that this is a technical breakthrough that can be build on is delusional.

Additionally, a relatively simple countermeasure, an ablative coating much like the one that was used on the X-15 A2 tends to mitigate a lot of the potential for damage, as does going with more robust solid rocket technology.

The real reason that this is irrelevant though is because technology has largely passed it by, with the Army testiong Northrop solid state laser in the 100 kW class, it becomes cheaper to go with electrically powered lasers, because if we are seeing 100 kW today, it's likely that we will be seeing the 1 mW of the ABL in 5 years.

The chief of staff of the Air Force, when he isn't being a bigoted anti-gay idiot, also notes that this is simply not a technology that can be reasonably deployed (scroll down, the bigoted hand wringing over DADT is in the first few paragraphs):

Rep. Michael Turner, ranking member of the HASC strategic forces subcommittee, raised the recent success of the Airborne Laser in shooting a target. He asked if that would lead the Air Force to increase its commitment to directed energy weapons. Schwartz poured a fair amount of cold water on the Boeing program, calling the ABL test “a magnificent technical achievement” but “this does not represent something that is operationally viable.” The future “coin of the realm” is solid state lasers, Schwartz said, not the chemical laser that Boeing built.

H/t my brother, Daniel "Crescent Lands" Saroff for sending me the link to the first article.