MISSILE CAN BE REACHED BY LASER EDWARDS SUCCESSFULLY TESTS DEFENSE SYSTEM.

Byline: Jim Skeen Staff Writer

EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE - The Airborne Laser team reached a milestone this month with a ground-test firing that was long and powerful enough to destroy a ballistic missile in its boost phase.

At the team's facility at Edwards Air Force Base, the laser was fired for more than 10 seconds during a Dec. 6 ground test. Both the length and power level of the test were at levels believed necessary to destroy a ballistic missile during its boost phase or within a few minutes after it is launched, said Air Force Lt. Gen. Henry ``Trey'' Obering III, director of the Missile Defense Agency.

Neither the exact length nor the level of power generated by the laser were disclosed.

Ground testing of the laser system began on Nov. 10, 2004. Since then, the laser has been fired more than 70 times, beginning with a burst of a fraction of a second and increasing past the 10-second mark, program officials said.

If the military can get the weapon to work well enough for service, it will be installed into a highly modified Boeing 747-400 freighter. The laser would then be tested against actual missiles before 2010.

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.

The aircraft that will carry the test laser completed a series of flight tests at Edwards in July and is now in Wichita, Kan., undergoing modifications to its aft section to prepare it for the installation. The beginning of the laser installation is more than a year away, since the modules have to be dismantled and removed from the laboratory at Edwards.

The illuminator lasers also are being installed in Wichita. Those lasers will be tested on the ground and in the air before the aircraft returns to Edwards.

Jim Skeen, [phone]

james.skeen(at)dailynews.com