Teh Awesome GizmodoThe Boeing Company [NYSE: BA], industry teammates and the U.S. Missile Defense Agency last week fired a high-energy laser through the Airborne Laser's (ABL) beam control/fire control system, completing the first ground test of the entire weapon system integrated aboard the aircraft.
During the test at Edwards Air Force Base, the laser beam traveled through the beam control/fire control system before exiting the aircraft through the nose-mounted turret. The beam control/fire control system steered and focused the beam onto a simulated ballistic-missile target.
"This test is significant because it demonstrated that the Airborne Laser missile defense program has successfully integrated the entire weapon system aboard the ABL aircraft," said Scott Fancher, vice president and general manager of Boeing Missile Defense Systems. "With the achievement of the first firing of the laser aboard the aircraft in September, the team has now completed the two major milestones it hoped to accomplish in 2008, keeping ABL on track to conduct the missile shootdown demonstration planned for next year."
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
Boeing Airborne Laser Weapon Fires for the First Time
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3 comments:
Ahhhh , LASERS!
now if they can just make it smaller so as to mount it on my van , for those unruly traffic situations!
Reading this gave me a tingle up my leg.
Teh Awesome Gizmodo is right!
Actually the first full flight test firing of the laser took place over four months ago when some pimple faced kids, outside the perimeter fence, mistakenly thought they were firing their hobby lasers into the cockpit of a Boeing 737.
Test Commander Captain Spotswood, an embittered associate of Naval Lt. Cmdr. Jack Daly, briefly discussed with his co-pilot a slight stinging in his right eye before the decision was made to return ground fire.
Apparently also discussed, during the mission debriefing, was the need to notify the prankster's next of kin. That is, until Commander Spotswood pointed out that their identities would be impossible to determine in the absence of on-site DNA gas vapor spectrometers closely situated downwind.
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