Four years after giving up on laser-equipped 747, military chiefs turn attention to lightweight lasers and UAVs that can stay aloft for days
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| An MQ-9 Reaper on a training mission Photo: GETTY |
The Pentagon has revealed plans to equip drones with powerful lasers to shoot missiles out of the sky.
The drones would stay aloft for days at a time, operating at an altitude of 65,000 ft with the power to destroy missiles during their launch phase, before they can deploy decoys or other countermeasures.
Officials said using drones would be more effective than a previous programme that used a Boeing 747 test plane.
Speaking at a Centre for Strategic and International Studies event in Washington, Vice-Adm James Syring, the Missile Defense Agency director, said advances in laser technology meant they could soon be fitted to high-altitude drones.
“We have significantly ramped up our program in terms of investment and talking about it more of what else needs to be done to mature this capability,” he said, according to Defence One.
Such drones would operate at altitudes far above bad weather, lingering over launch sites.
In 2010, the Pentagon's “Airborne Laser”- a 747 modified over 16 years at a cost of $5 billion – shot down its first missile in a test.
However, its short range meant it had to get so close to a launch site that it would have been vulnerable to fighters and air defence systems. The plan was abandoned four years ago.
| Photo: PA |
Photo: PA
Vice-Adm Syring said: “It proved that this this concept could work.
“It proved that, given enough power, given enough beam quality, given enough altitude, intercept of a ballistic missile … [at a] wide variety of ranges would theoretically be possible.”
The 747 used a chemical laser, the size of six 4x4s. Each time it fired, the aircraft needed to land so the laser could be refuelled.
The challenge now is to develop lighter weight lasers with longer ranges, that can be fitted to the latest drones, capable of staying aloft for days at a time.
“You're going to need as much power as you can get to destroy as many boosters as you can,” said Vice-Adml Syring.
“If you can balance that range, altitude, power and number of boosters you need to defeat to help augment our kinetic capability, you're thinking about the problem exactly right.”
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