Boeing's Airborne Laser said to complete key test

WASHINGTON-A modified Boeing Co. (BA.N: Quote, Profile, Research) 747 designed to be part of an emerging U.S. antimissile shield has successfully completed an important flight test, the Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency and Boeing said on Monday.To simulate an intercept, the prototype Airborne Laser actively tracked an airborne target, compensated for atmospheric turbulence and fired a "surrogate" for a missile-zapping high-energy laser, they said."We have now demonstrated most of the steps needed for the Airborne Laser to engage a threat missile and deliver precise and lethal effects against it," said Pat Shanahan, a vice president at Boeing, the prime contractor.Air Force Lt. Col. John Daniels, the Pentagon's program manager, said the test on Friday marked an historic day for "directed-energy" weapons firing at the speed of light, or 186,000 miles per second."This will fundamentally change the way we engage and destroy fleeting targets," he said in a telephone interview with Reuters.The airborne laser is to be the first warplane relying entirely on a directed energy device as a weapon. It is designed to destroy an enemy ballistic missile shortly after it is launched, in the "boost phase" of its flight path.The program will have cost about $5 billion from its inception in the early 1990s through a scheduled test intercept test of a mock enemy missile in August 2009, Daniels said.
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