BOEING TO HELP TEST SKY-PATROL LASERS.

Byline: Jim Skeen Staff Writer

EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE - Boeing was awarded a $500 million contract to build a ground test facility to help develop laser weapon to shoot down enemy missiles.

Called an ``iron bird'' and financed by the Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency, the test facility essentially will be an aircraft hull installed with laser equipment for testing components to see if they are ready to be installed on an actual aircraft.

Congress's auditing arm, the General Accounting Office, said the ``iron bird'' will reduce the cost of testing new laser technologies by perfecting them on the ground first.

``The agency can mature new component-level technologies to higher levels in the less expensive ground-testing environment before installing them on an aircraft,'' the GAO said in a report to Congress.

The contract runs through April 2013, the Missile Defense Agency announced.

The contract was awarded as part of the Pentagon's $1.1 billion Airborne Laser program, which is aimed at developing a weapon capable of destroying enemy missiles with an invisible beam of energy.

The airborne laser aircraft, a highly modified Boeing 747, is being developed in response to worldwide threats posed by missiles such as the Scuds launched by Iraq against Israeli and American forces during the first Gulf War.

During combat, airborne laser aircraft would 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 would illuminate it, and computers would 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, would destroy the missile.

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

The first airplane developed for the program is at Edwards for a series of tests highlighted by an attempt to shoot down a Scudlike missile in late 2004, possibility over the Pacific Ocean or at the White Sands missile range in New Mexico.

The Edwards airplane - designated YAL-1A, for airborne laser, with Y the Air Force designation for prototype aircraft - probably would not be used in combat.

However, it is intended to pave the way for the nation's first flying laser weapon system. Program officials said they expect an operational airborne laser to take to the skies sometime in the coming decade.

If the Edwards tests are successful, a fleet of seven or so laser-armed 747s could be created to fly to international hot spots. Patrolling high enough to see over clouds, the planes would fire their lasers to shoot down missiles soon after launch, while they are still over enemy territory.

CAPTION(S):

2 photos

Photo:

(1 -- color) A KC-135 air tanker, left, fuels a Boeing 747 that will patrol enemy skies looking for missiles to shoot down with lasers.

(2 -- color) An Air Force rendering shows how a 747's laser would shoot down enemy missiles.

Air Force