Attack at the Speed of Light

USAF’s Airborne Laser (at left) on its maiden flight last July, was the catalyst for military laser development. Above, the YAL-1A, as it appears in its USAF livery.

Soon, US combat forces will begin to field lasers as weapons. Attack at the Speed of Light

ITHIN two years, the mental tactical lasers by mid-decade, By John A. Tirpak, Executive Editor field operational before 2010. Ex- “We’ve spent 25 to 30 years de- stage: good for targeting weapons Air Force will at- and by the end of the decade, fighter pect also to see substantial increases veloping the technology,” said Col. and as range finders but with little Wtempt to shoot down aircraft with laser pods or turrets in science and technology funding Ellen M. Pawlikowski, USAF’s pro- near-term potential as destructive a ballistic missile with a laser beam. could be in test flights. for basic laser research that could gram director for the Airborne La- weapons in themselves. That has In about the same amount of time, The age of laser weapons has nearly enable whole new classes of small ser. “Now is the time for the engi- changed. the Army expects to be well on its arrived. laser systems with tactically signifi- neers to take what those smart The services now expect lasers to way to fielding a vehicle system of- When the Administration unveils cant power before 2020. physicists and scientists have done become a class of weapon able to fering laser defense against rockets, its Fiscal 2004 budget for the Penta- No science fiction here: Lasers as and put it in the field.” deliver a quantum leap in capability, artillery rounds, and cruise missiles, gon in the next few months, expect weapons are in the final stages of In the midÐ1990s when the Air epitomizing the Pentagon buzzword while the Navy will be trying out to see significant increases in money development, and plans for their in- Force decided to proceed with the “transformational.” similar defenses for its ships at sea. to support near-term deployment of tegration into combat forces are pro- Airborne Laser, the other services A Defense Science Board task Gunships will be flying with experi- laser systems, some of which will be ceeding. saw lasers as still in the embryonic force conducted a comprehensive

26 AIR FORCE Magazine / December 2002 AIR FORCE Magazine / December 2002 27 USAF’s Airborne Laser (at left) on its maiden flight last July, was the catalyst for military laser development. Above, the YAL-1A, as it appears in its USAF livery.

Soon, US combat forces will begin to field lasers as weapons. Attack at the Speed of Light

26 AIR FORCE Magazine / December 2002 AIR FORCE Magazine / December 2002 27 review of existing high energy laser would enable more widespread ap- chief of the Laser Division at the Air programs to determine their prom- plications over the next 20 years. Force Research Lab’s Directed En- ise, the technical challenges they Anthony J. Tether, the head of the ergy Directorate, Kirtland AFB, N.M. faced, and realistic prospects for their Defense Advanced Research Projects “That really focused people on fielding. The conclusion of the task Agency, agrees that the enabling looking at directed energy across the force: Laser technologies have ma- science of laser weaponry is well in [defense] community and [at] vari- tured to the point that a family of hand. ous applications, both strategic and applications is feasible before 2020. Tether, in a roundtable discussion tactical,” Neice said. “That has Lasers offer “speed-of-light attack, with reporters in October, acknowl- spawned a lot of the other work we’re unique damage mechanisms, greatly edged that laser weapons are no doing right now in laser develop- enhanced multitarget engagement, longer a futuristic technology but ment.” and deep magazines, ... low cost per one that is being mainstreamed with Deformable optics—a key break- shot (or per kill), and reduced logis- the armed services. He pointed out through in the ABL program—is one tics footprint,” said the task force in that DARPA began working on la- of the chief technological innova- its 230-page report, published in sers in the early 1970s and is poised tions that has made laser weapons August 2001. to advance the technology even fur- possible. The use of deformable op- Besides instantaneous attack ca- ther. tics—a mirror whose face can be pacity, a practically unlimited num- Tether said efforts are under way altered hundreds of times per second ber of inexpensive shots, and the to “really allow us to increase the to correct for turbulence in the air— ability to switch targets rapidly, la- average power output of lasers” and enables the laser emitter to hold a sers can be tuned to the level of to package them more compactly. steady, high-quality laser beam on a destruction desired—from a little to Packaging lasers into a size small target, despite the natural air turbu- a lot. Switching lasers for, say, bombs enough “that a helicopter might be lence between the laser emitter and or missiles would also expand the able to carry it” has drawn Army the target. range and time on station of the plat- interest, said Tether, since such a Beam control systems and special form using them. With no heavy ord- laser—in the hundreds of kilowatts optical coatings have also played an nance to carry, since light—the me- class—would be capable of tremen- important role in putting, as Pawli- dium of destruction—is weightless, dous heating of an object miles away. kowski said, “photons on target.” aircraft could go farther on the same “It’ll be a big deal,” he said. The There are three kinds of lasers amount of fuel. capability is probably five or six being prepared for combat duty: Such weapons offer the US a unique years away, but “the Army is so ex- chemical, electric, and free-electron “technological advantage,” one in cited about it, they want us to sign up lasers. which the American military is well to a [Memorandum of Agreement] Chemical lasers—those whose ahead of any competitor, according right now,” said Tether. energy comes from the mixing of to the task force. chemicals, producing a high energy The DSB group strongly recom- The Catalyst effect—are in hand now and will be mended a funding increase of $150 The Airborne Laser program was the first combat lasers deployed. The million a year to aggressively pur- a major catalyst driving all the ser- Airborne Laser uses a chemical la- sue laser technology for both near- vices to get involved in laser weap- ser, as does the Army’s Tactical High term systems and basic research that onry, according to Col. Mark Neice, Energy Laser (a ground-based system for use against short-range rockets). Another new chemical system, the Advanced Tactical Laser, will go on AC-130Ðstyle gunships. Chemical lasers offer very high power—in the megawatt range. A drawback is that they require large platforms to haul the large quantity of chemicals needed and the laser modules themselves, as well as the beam control mechanism. The Air- borne Laser platform is a specially configured 747 widebody jetliner. The Army’s THEL currently requires three vehicles the size of semitrailers, although it is described as “transportable.” The Advanced Tactical Laser will be housed in a wheeled module that can be loaded into the cargo bay of a C-130Ðtype aircraft. Electric, or solid-state, lasers, The Air Force is developing another chemical laser system—the Advanced use electricity as their power source. Tactical Laser—to be installed in the cargo bay of C-130s, such as this AC-130 To be small enough to be useful for gunship. combat operations, they would be

28 AIR FORCE Magazine / December 2002 limited to about 25 kilowatts. How- ever, Neice said AFRL has set a goal of five years to develop a 100-kilo- watt solid-state laser. The Air Force has already identi- fied its first potential platform for an electric laser—the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. The research lab struck an agreement with Lockheed Martin to ex- plore the possibility for the F-35, although the agreement could ex- tend to other fighters. Neice said the service chose the F-35 initially because both it and the electric laser are still being defined. “We are looking at this in terms of technology insertion,” he said. “I would love to see it as a Spiral 1” system, or one that would appear on the first F-35s. He admitted it’s too The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter is USAF’s first choice for a potential electric soon to tell if that will happen. The laser weapon system platform. Fighters are ideal for an electric laser because more likely timing for a directed they produce huge amounts of energy as a by-product of producing thrust. energy weapon on that aircraft will be in Spiral 2 or Spiral 3, said Neice. For example, Neice explained, which is within the realm of possi- Industry officials are even look- “We could target specific items on bility in 10 years,” he reported, adding beyond fighters now in devel- an airborne platform to heat up, such ing, “The time to work on tactics and opment. They have a new class of as fuel tanks, missiles, flight con- techniques is right now.” He wants “fotofighter”—small combat jets trols, those types of things, that would today’s young fighter pilots to “grow that would employ laser weapons render the aircraft incapable of con- up with it a little bit” because those exclusively—already on the draw- tinuing in the fight.” in the fighter weapons school now ing boards. “We would have the ability to reach will be the commanders when the Fighter aircraft make ideal plat- out and touch [an aircraft] at a sig- system becomes operational. forms for solid-state lasers because nificant distance,” he said, noting “Those are the kinds of guys we fighter engines can produce huge that a fighter-sized laser would achieve need to get energized and enthused amounts of electricity as a by-prod- a hit anywhere between 30 miles and on it, so that when that capability uct of producing huge amounts of 155 miles away. The range of lasers comes to them, they’ll know how to thrust. would be affected by weather condi- use it,” he said. For the F-35, Lockheed Martin is tions and the presence of obscurants, The third type laser system—free- considering either an internal con- such as smoke or airborne dust. electron lasers—might be the “dark figuration with the laser beam di- Neice said the Air Force Research horse” technology that could be the rected through ports around the pe- Lab has modified F-16 simulators at compact laser weapon of the future, rimeter of the airplane, a belly turret, the Theater Air Command and Con- according to the DSB panel. Free- or a pod carried in the weapons bay. trol Facility, also at Kirtland, to be- electron lasers use superconducting The goal is to develop an “effi- gin familiarizing fighter pilots with radio-frequency accelerators to cre- cient packaging of a laser in the kilo- the capabilities of lasers. ate a tunable beam of electrons. Rapid watt class,” Neice said. “It could be “We’ve been exposing the opera- advancement in superconductivity a chemical laser, it could be a gas tional F-16 fighter pilots to the capa- may make free-electron lasers com- laser, it could a solid-state laser. We bilities of directed energy,” he ex- petitive with or superior to electric, tend to lean toward the solid-state plained. “One of the efforts I’m trying or solid-state, lasers as the technol- laser in that application because there to work right now is to get that in- ogy progresses. is a big empty shaft bay” in the F-35 cluded into the curriculum out at the Pawlikowski observed, however, that could house a laser weapon sys- fighter weapons school [at Nellis that there are no huge breakthroughs tem. Also, the engine “produces AFB, Nev.], where I can get America’s in laser technology expected in the 27,000 shaft horsepower,” he said, best and brightest fighter pilots look- next few years. “I think that laser adding, “And that is a tremendous ing at these capabilities and then technology is moving quickly but electrical generating device.” helping to develop a concept of op- not at a breakthrough speed at this In early versions, these fighter- erations for use of directed energy point,” she said. The technology is mounted lasers would be used to weapons in a tactical fighter appli- undergoing incremental improve- spoof or blind incoming missiles, cation.” ments as scientists and engineers especially those that are heat-seek- Those pilots who have used the refine the state of the art. ing or optically guided. Offensively, laser-capable F-16 simulators are A “dramatic breakthrough” in the they could be used against another “very excited ... when they realize Chemical OxygenÐIodide Laser, or fighter’s vulnerable spots. that this capability is something COIL, at the heart of the ABL sys-

AIR FORCE Magazine / December 2002 29 ware gets delivered, there are all of the inevitable problems; you get things not working as expected.” Kadish said he won’t have high confidence of a TBM shootdown by the end of 2004 until the all-up ABL aircraft has all its parts, is fully integrated, and starts shooting its laser next spring. He quickly added, though, that while meeting the schedule is a chal- lenge, “the good news here is ... there will be a lot of people showing up at Edwards Air Force Base in Palmdale [Calif.] in the next few days to work intensely on putting [the ABL] together.” Although initially encouraged to broaden the application of the ABL to other target sets, such as cruise A large ball turret on the nose of the Airborne Laser will house the system missiles, the program is no longer optics. The full-up laser will be installed in the airplane in early 2004. Test being asked to do so, Pawlikowski shots against a ScudÐtype target are scheduled for summer 2004. reported. Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. John tem, might come in the form of a the airplane. She said the “first suc- P. Jumper “definitely sees the po- gas-phase laser, but “I would con- cessful, full-up test of a laser mod- tential of directed energy weapons sider that five to eight years down ule” took place in January. and has told me repeatedly how im- the road,” she added. (A gas-phase “We got 118 percent of the power portant this program is to the future version of an iodine laser would we expected out of it,” she reported, of directed energy and the potential employ chemical gases—lighter and “so it was a very successful test.” of using this airplane for lots of other easier to transport, maintain, and The ABL is being integrated at things,” Pawlikowski said. “But I store than COIL liquids, one of which Edwards AFB, Calif., which Pawli- believe that the current Air Force needs constant refrigeration.) kowski said is rapidly becoming the position is, ‘Let’s get that first mis- center of the universe for ABL and sion down, and then we’ll look at the The Aim of the ABL its associated efforts. It is at Edwards others,’ ” she said. The ABL program was launched that the pieces will all come to- When DOD’s Missile Defense as a way to shoot down Theater Bal- gether, including support systems Agency took over the ABL program listic Missiles while still in the boost like chemical storage and draining last year, the focus of the program phase of their flight. The idea is to facilities. changed, said Pawlikowski. ABL is spot and track the missile and focus The full-up laser will be installed seen now as part of national missile a high energy laser on its skin, weak- in the airplane in early 2004 and defense, not just theater missile de- ening it enough that the dynamic test-fired on the ground at Edwards, fense, which will eventually have forces of flight cause it to rupture Pawlikowski said. Test flights will strong implications for the number and explode. begin soon after. During the summer of aircraft built and how they are The debris of the exploded mis- of 2004, test shots will be made deployed. sile—and its warhead—would fall against a ScudÐlike, instrumented “We are no longer a single-weapon back on the nation that launched the target, suspended from a balloon, system that essentially stands alone,” weapon. followed by additional tests to dem- she said. “We are part ... of a layered The ABL is slated to shoot down a onstrate tracking ability. If all goes approach to missile defense. ...We ScudÐtype missile during 2004, as planned, the ABL will intercept are the air-based, boost-phase com- Pawlikowski noted. The schedule is its first missile before the scheduled ponent.” tight, but she believes the program date of Dec. 31, 2004. The Bush Administration requested will get there in time. The ABL air- Right now, the ABL is slated to a 25 percent increase in funding for craft made test flights last summer, make its first true intercept of a ABL in the Fiscal 2003 budget. Pen- with the large nose turret that will ballistic missile by the end of 2004. tagon officials said such an amount house the system optics but without However, that date may slip, ac- would help keep the program on track the laser system or optics onboard. cording to Lt. Gen. Ronald T. Ka- after funding volatility in previous Those will be brought on and inte- dish, director of the Missile De- years. The program is expected to grated over the course of the next fense Agency. cost $11 billion overall and produce two years. “This is crunch time for the ABL,” seven operational airplanes in 2010. The ABL system is being assembled Kadish said at an October discus- in components, which Pawlikowski sion with defense writers in Wash- Other Potential Combat Lasers said are being built and tested sepa- ington, D.C. “Now all the hardware Another Air Force chemical laser rately before they are integrated on is getting delivered. And when hard- venture is the Advanced Tactical

30 AIR FORCE Magazine / December 2002 Laser, which might appear on AC- 130 gunships in just a few years. “We are building a palletized system that will be mounted inside of a C-130,” Neice said. How the beam would be fired—through an aperture or turret—has yet to be decided. “We have a test C-130 at Eglin [AFB, Fla.],” he said. “Right now we’re looking at integration of this system in the 2005 time frame and then flight test in the 2006 time frame.” The program will focus on im- proving beam quality, reducing the size of the chemical laser, and a quick transition to the field. Neice said the stated goal from Air Force Special Operations Com- mand is to be able to attack both vehicles and standing structures. The Army’s Tactical High Energy Laser is technically transportable but “What we’re looking for is an abil- comprises three vehicles the size of semitrailers. A version suitable for ity to stop a vehicle from moving, movement by a C-130Ðsized aircraft could be fielded in about 2007. ... to prevent it from continuing with its intended purpose,” he said. “This The Army, in cooperation with Army is hoping to scale the system is not [about] blowing up a build- Israel, has developed THEL as a down to something comparable to ing.” means of defending against rock- the Patriot missile defense system, Against fixed structures, the laser ets—specifically, the Katyusha rock- which consists of smaller separate might be used to disable a radio tower, ets that Palestinian guerillas have vehicles for tracking radar and the dish antenna, or other building fea- used to attack border towns in Israel. actual missile launchers. ture to disrupt it from functioning, The system, powered by a chemical In 2003, the THEL program will not to destroy the edifice itself. A laser, has succeeded in shooting down focus on making the equipment suit- moving vehicle might be stopped 25 Katyushas in experiments. In early able for movement by transport air- “either by overheating the engine or November, THEL shot down an in- craft, said a spokesman for TRW, burning a hole in the engine—any bound artillery shell. which is building the system, to be number of means of stopping the THEL currently consists of three known as Mobile THEL, or MTHEL. vehicle,” Neice explained. vehicles. One carries the laser fuel, A version, for use only by the US AFRL’s part of the effort is funded one houses the tracking and guid- Army, could be fielded in about 2007. at roughly $10 million over the next ance system, and another houses the According to Patrick P. Caruana, four years, he added. laser and beam control gear. The TRW vice president and former vice commander of Air Force Space Com- mand, the classes of threats MTHEL could be used against has been broad- ened. “We are doing the analysis associated with artillery rounds, ... [Unmanned Combat Air Vehicles], and also cruise missiles,” he said. The Navy, which briefly pursued high energy lasers as potential weapons during the days of the Strategic Defense Initiative, has shown re- newed interest this past year. In March, Vice Adm. Dennis V. McGinn, the service’s requirements and programs chief, outlined a new concept of operations that will look at high energy lasers as a means to defend against anti-ship cruise missiles and UCAVs. A Pentagon official said the Navy elected to “jump back in” because it On Nov. 5, the THEL chemical laser system shot down an artillery shell in a test was apparent that technology was over White Sands Missile Range, N.M. Army officials said the event was the first advanced enough to make “work- such shootdown and marked a paradigm shift in defensive capabilities. able systems that would be suitable

AIR FORCE Magazine / December 2002 31 the DSB rated the SBL a “high risk” project. Congress shifted some $30 million from the SBL to the ABL in the Fiscal 2003 budget. Basing lasers in space holds a lot of appeal because it “solves a lot of the geography problem that we face,” according to Kadish. However, “as we looked at our priorities and the difficulties of Space Based Laser activity, we decided— collectively with the Congress—that we should put it at the technology stage and not even do the experiment that we were planning,” he said. In today’s missile defense priorities, “Space Based Laser is a ... very promising technology effort,” Kadish asserted. “We will do the technol- The ABL program gained funding at the expense of the Space Based Laser ogy as aggressively as we can, but it effort, now seen as unlikely to produce an operational system within two won’t be focused on putting an ex- decades. Officials say the technology is still promising, though. periment in space in the near term.” He reported that the program of- for the maritime environment.” At 2003 budget, and the Bush Adminis- fice for what had been termed the the same time, Navy concerns about tration has elected not to try to pur- “Integrated Space-Based Experiment” ship vulnerability to a mass attack of sue the effort for now. has been disbanded, and its constitu- cruise missiles demanded a response The SBL program was to produce ent elements will be consolidated other than Gatling guns and other an experimental capability around under the Airborne Laser project. anti-missile technologies. 2012 but perished from a combina- Space applications for lasers are The Navy is also evaluating la- tion of politics, shifting treaty reali- not confined to lasers actually in ser systems for use by surfaced sub- ties, and technical challenges related space, however. The Air Force Re- marines. Since nuclear submarines to the system. The experiment would search Lab is considering lofting into have abundant onboard electrical have cost “billions to put up, and it orbit mirrors that could reflect the power, solid-state lasers are favored would not have offered an opera- light of a laser fired from the ground over chemical lasers, the by-prod- tional capability,” according to an or air toward targets either in space uct of which—spent chemicals— industry official closely associated or within the atmosphere. The pro- would have to be stored until the with the effort. gram is called Evolutionary Aero- submarine could put back into port. “Also, it was conceived at a time space Global Laser Engagement Sys- The advantage of using lasers on when we were still following the tem. board submarines is that they are a ABM treaty, ... and there were oppo- A handheld “death ray” laser will munition that would be stealthy, nents in Congress who wanted some- likely not be available to US troops Navy officials reported. thing in exchange for the increases in the foreseeable future, but the “You can surface, hit a target miles in other parts of the defense program advent of smaller and more power- away with a laser, and no one knows last year,” he said. ful laser weapons will certainly work you were ever there,” a Pentagon However, the SBL project also a change in how US forces operate. official observed. Ideal would be a faced some huge technical chal- For the coming decade, “I really system that could be fitted on the lenges. In its report, the DSB panel see laser weapons becoming truly sub’s conning tower or periscope, so said the system envisioned for even- transformational,” said Caruana. only a fraction of the vessel would tual operational use—a large chemi- “We’re talking about operations at have to be above the waterline to cal laser—was expected to weigh in the speed of light, ... about precision conduct an attack. at 80,000 pounds and require a fair- in a very focused application of en- The possible naval applications ing more than 26.4 feet in diameter. ergy, which I believe will give the are varied. Ship- and sub-based la- The panel observed that no existing battlefield commanders opportuni- sers could breach the skin of an en- rocket could lift such a payload, nor ties to be very selective in how and emy vessel at the waterline, blind its is one even on the books. what they target.” optics, or disable its communica- Moreover, the SBL would have Right now, Caruana said, the US tions by damaging antennas. needed a five- to eightfold increase “has the right kind of [laser] tech- in power over the proposed experi- nology development going.” Space Lasers and Beyond mental version to be operationally “If we stay on that continuum,” One area that will not see lasers useful against ballistic missiles. Given what is now the state of the art in the deployed anytime soon is space. the long list of engineering break- laboratory will become “a little bit Congress drastically cut funding for throughs necessary to make an op- more routine” in day-to-day opera- the Space Based Laser in the Fiscal erational system workable by 2020, tions, he said. ■

32 AIR FORCE Magazine / December 2002