`LASER PLANE' TO BE TESTED AT BASE EXPERIMENTAL WEAPON WOULD DESTROY MISSILES.

Byline: JIM SKEEN Staff Writer

EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE -- A test program aimed at turning the science fiction of laser weapons into reality will reach a milestone this fall with the return of a modified 747 carrying the test laser.

After several months of modifications at a Boeing plant in Wichita, Kan., the Airborne Laser plane will return to Edwards Air Force Base in the next few weeks to begin flight testing. This time, the testing is geared toward proving the weapon system can track its targets.

``Now we are ready to go fly,'' said Pat Shanahan, vice president and general manager of Boeing Missile Defense Systems, the program's prime contractor. ``We are ready to demonstrate the aircraft's ability to close the fire control loop against a flying target.''

Involving three major contractors -- Boeing, Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin -- the aircraft is being readied for its ultimate graduation test: attempting to shoot down a missile. That test is slated for 2008.

Program officials envision future Airborne Laser aircraft patrolling in pairs at more than 40,000 feet and inside friendly territory, scanning the horizon for missiles.

When a missile is detected, a set of lasers will track and illuminate it, and computers will measure the distance and calculate its course and direction.

A second high-energy laser, fired through the nose turret mounted on the aircraft, will destroy the missile. The laser is made up of six modules, each weighing 4,500 pounds and about the size of a sport utility vehicle turned on its end.

The beam will heat an area about the diameter of a basketball on the missile's relatively fragile fuel-tank casing. The laser will weaken metal already under high pressure from the ignited rocket fuel, causing the missile to explode.

Ground tests of the laser were conducted at Edwards over an 11-month period, ending last December with a laser shot long enough and powerful enough that officials said it would have been capable of destroying a ballistic missile.

After that testing, the aircraft was sent to Wichita for installation of two illuminating lasers that will be tested in flight. In the tests, the lasers will be aimed at a missile-shape imaged painted on a modified KC-135E test aircraft known as the ``Big Crow.''

The firing will verify the Airborne Laser's ability to track a target and to compensate for atmospheric conditions. The tests will be done with a surrogate laser weapon; the actual high-energy laser is slated to be installed on the aircraft in 2007, according to the Missile Defense Agency.

Several test firings will be conducted with the illuminating lasers prior to the installation of the high-energy laser and the ultimate missile shoot-down in 2008.

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2 photos

Photo:

(1 -- color) This Air Force illustration shows how a laser mounted in the nose of a 747 would shoot down an enemy ballistic missile.

(2 -- color) The Air Force's Airborne Laser jet gets a refill from a KC-135 aerial tanker during a test mission flown out of Edwards Air Force Base. The modified 747 aircraft will carry a laser that is being tested to see whether it is capable of shooting down enemy ballistic missiles.

U.S. Air Force