Airborne Laser Test Bed is put to rest in the Boneyard
Laser Focus world
By John Wallace
February 17, 2012
The U.S. Missile Defense Agency (MDA) announced this week that the Airborne Laser Test Bed — a megawatt-class 1.3 µm chemical oxygen-iodine laser (COIL) mounted in a modified Boeing 747 and intended to shoot down ballistic missiles in their boost phase — has been put into “long-term storage” at the 309th Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Group at Davis Monthan Air Force Base. This location, also known as the “Boneyard,” is where excess and unused military aircraft are taken for preservation.
The Airborne Laser achieved high-power “first light” in ground testing in 2008, then was tested in flight several times over the next few years with varying success; however, it never reached the couple-hundred-kilometer range required to make the system useful in practice. …
Read on: www.laserfocusworld.com/articles/2012/02/airborne-laser-test-bed-is-put-to-rest-in-the-boneyard.html
