AIRBORNE LASER USED IN FIRST TEST BEAM TEST-FIRED AT BASE BRIEFLY.

Byline: Jim Skeen Staff Writer

EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE - In a step toward creation of a weapon to shoot down ballistic missiles, a laser designed to be mounted in a jet was test-fired for the first time at Edwards Air Force Base.

The ground-based test, referred to as ``First Light,'' took place Wednesday as the six laser modules and the associated optics that make up the weapon fired a beam for less than a second.

The beam was fired through a tube toward a wall at the Airborne Laser's Edwards test facility. The beam is invisible, but it ignited dust particles during the test.

``There was a firefly effect, sparkles of light,'' program spokesman Ken Englade said Friday.

Although the test duration was short, it proved the laser worked, program officials said.

``This proves the laser hardware is ready to go,'' said Col. Ellen Pawlikowski, the program director.

The program will continue ground tests until it is able to produce a beam fire with a duration of several seconds. That will likely take several months, Englade said.

As work continues on the laser, program officials plan to begin flight tests later this year of the highly modified Boeing 747 freighter that will carry the weapon, Englade said.

The laser was built by Northrop Grumman.

``This successful test shows the ABL team has met the engineering and system integration challenges in size, weight and configuration posed by building the world's most powerful laser for use within an airborne environment,'' said Wes Bush, president of Northrop Grumman Space Technology, which built the laser. ``This is an exceptional achievement by the ABL team and represents a tremendous technological step forward in laser weapons.''

Boeing is the team leader and system integrator for the Airborne Laser under contract to the U.S. Missile Defense Agency.

``Today, we successfully demonstrated the critical element necessary for the ABL to enter the next phase of its testing,'' said Jim Evatt, vice president and general manager of Boeing Missile Defense Systems. ``We're proud of the ABL team for overcoming the many first-of-a-kind obstacles to get to this point and look forward to the deployment of ABL.''

In addition to Boeing and Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin is also working on the program. Lockheed Martin is developing the beam control/fire control system.

If the military can get the weapon to work well enough for service, the Airborne Laser aircraft will patrol in pairs at more than 40,000 feet and inside friendly territory, scanning the horizon for missiles. When a missile is detected, a tracking laser beam will illuminate it, and computers will measure the distance and calculate its course and direction.

A second high-energy laser, fired in a three- to five-second burst from the nose turret mounted on the 747, will destroy the missile.

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.

Developing the Airborne Laser has more than doubled in cost to $2 billion and could go up millions more - as much as $943 million, according to a congressional audit released this summer.

Defense officials did not adequately plan for and could not fully anticipate the complexity of developing and demonstrating critical technologies needed for the Airborne Laser, the General Accounting Office report said.

The report was, however, supportive of a restructuring the program made in February. The changes included deferring the purchase of a second aircraft and other hardware and focusing on incremental steps in developing all critical technologies before advancing to the next step in research and development.

There are about 650 people working on the program at Edwards Air Force Base.

Where the aircraft will eventually be based has yet to be decided, but congressional auditors said it is likely Edwards will support initial operations until new facilities can be built.

For the laser testing, the Air Force spent $22 million to build more than 60,000 square feet of laboratory space at Edwards, including a facility capable of simulating conditions for weapons firing at 40,000 feet above the Earth.

Jim Skeen, [phone]

james.skeen(at)dailynews.com