Airborne Laser Misses Target Due To Software Glitch In Test

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Airborne Laser Goes Off-Target Due to Software Bug

By Jeremy Hsu

SPACE.com Senior Writer

posted: 24 September 2010

11:30 am ET



An airborne laser built for the U.S. Missile Defense Agency failed to destroy a target missile when a software glitch threw off its precision aiming during its latest field test.



The anti-missile system aboard a Boeing 747 flying laser laboratory managed to detect and track a liquid-fuel, short-range ballistic missile at the Point Mugu flight test range off the Southern California coast on Sept. 1.



A safety system aboard the aircraft detected the misaligned beam and immediately shut down the high-energy laser as it attempted to take down the missile, according to Debra Christman, a spokeswoman for the Missile Defense Agency. The agency announced the test results on Sept. 10.



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www.lifecellskin.com/"The laser terminated before the short-range threat representative target was destroyed," Christman told SPACE.com in a Sept. 17 e-mail in a response to inquiries into the test. [Most Destructive Space Weapons]



The time to destroy a target depends on factors such as distance to target, type of target and atmospheric conditions, Christman explained.



The laser test was meant to destroy the target missile from twice the distance of the past tests. The Missile Defense Agency does not disclose actual standoff distances for flight tests.



The Airborne Laser was originally designed as an operational system that could shoot down missiles during their boost phase, but has since served as merely a technology development platform.



Two kilowatt-class solid state lasers housed in the nose turret of the Boeing 747 help track the missile target, and also correct for atmospheric disturbances by using an adaptive optics system. A main megawatt-class, high energy laser then seeks to destroy the target.



A first shoot-down test in February allowed the aircraft to destroy a boosting sounding rocket. It then went two out of three for interceptions eight days later, when it took down a liquid-fuel ballistic missile but failed to eliminate a second target in the form of a solid-fuel sounding rocket.Planning for future tests is underway despite the recent failure.



Tests of the repaired software were slated to begin on Sept. 13 and will lead to another shoot-down attempt involving a solid-fuel target missile by the end of the month.



The agency has also begun planning for a mid-October experiment would have the laser target a solid-fuel missile at three times the range of the successful February test that destroyed the liquid-fuel ballistic missile.