Topic: ABL milestone schedule published

[Stormbringer]

http://space.com/businesstechnology/060322_airborne_laser.html

Officials Map Out Test Milestones for Airborne Laser

By Jeremy Singer
Staff Writer
posted: 22 March 2006
07:01 am ET
 


The threat of cancellation no longer looms over the Pentagon's Airborne Laser (ABL) effort, but senior program officials say they are taking nothing for granted as they prepare for a missile-intercept demonstration in 2008.

Several clear test milestones have been laid out for the ABL in 2006 so that senior Missile Defense Agency (MDA) officials will be able to measure its progress, according to Air Force Col. John Daniels, the ABL's program director.

The ABL is a Boeing 747 aircraft being equipped with a high-powered chemical laser to destroy ballistic missiles in their boost phase. Boeing Co. of Chicago is the prime contactor on the effort.

As envisioned, the aircraft would fly in a figure-eight pattern over an area deemed a likely site of a missile launch. Onboard infrared sensors would detect the launch and feed that information into a computer that would direct the laser turret to point at the ascending missile. The turret would then fire two lower-powered solid-state lasers—one to track the missile and one to measure atmospheric distortion—before shooting the high-powered chemical laser at the target.

The ABL program's inability to meet cost and schedule targets in past years once made it a candidate for termination. Just prior to his 2004 retirement, U.S. Air Force Lt. Gen. Ronald Kadish, who was then serving as MDA director, said the program could be canceled if it did not perform well in initial flight and ground tests that were scheduled for late in the year.

Those tests were a flight of the aircraft outfitted with the battle-management and fire-control systems, and a brief firing of the chemical laser on the ground. Both went smoothly, and the senior MDA officials have not invoked similar termination threats in relation to any upcoming ABL test, Daniels said in a telephone interview.

As the 2004 demonstrations approached, markers, called "knowledge points," were laid out to ensure that progress on the program—or lack thereof—would be easy for senior MDA officials and their congressional overseers to gauge, said Daniels, who took over the program in April 2005. He replaced Brig. Gen. Ellen Pawlikowski, who now serves as the director of the Air Force's military satellite communications joint program office.

The ABL program has a budget of $471.6 million in 2006. Knowledge points laid out for this year include testing of the solid-state lasers for missile tracking and atmospheric-distortion correction. Ground-based tests of those lasers are slated to wrap up in August, with flight-testing to take place by the end of the year, Daniels said.

During the flight test, the lasers will be fired at a military NKC-135 aircraft with a picture of a ballistic missile painted on its fuselage, according to Greg Hyslop, Boeing vice president and ABL program director. While these lasers are relatively low powered, the aircraft will be shielded and the pilots will wear protective goggles, he said.

Also planned for 2006 is the refurbishment of the optical hardware on the high-power chemical laser for a new round of ground testing in 2007, Daniels said.

That hardware has been used extensively over the past 18 months and the military plans to thoroughly clean and inspect it to ensure it is ready for the next series of tests and then 2008 intercept, Daniels said.

MDA has requested $631 million for the ABL effort in 2007. During that year the MDA plans to install the refurbished chemical laser hardware on the 747 aircraft, and run ground tests to prepare for the 2008 intercept demonstration, Daniels said.

Air Force Lt. Gen. Henry "Trey" Obering, the MDA's current director, has indicated that the 2008 demonstration likely will factor heavily into a decision on whether to continue with the ABL program beyond then. The ABL has been positioned as a competitor to the Kinetic Energy Interceptor, a boost-phase missile defense system slated for a flight test in 2008, and MDA officials have indicated that only one of the programs may be funded over the long term.

Daniels said an operational ABL fleet ultimately could consist of seven aircraft.

When it submitted its 2006 funding request to Congress last year, the MDA said it was planning to begin design work on a second ABL aircraft in 2007. The plan accompanying the budget submission for 2007 delays that work to 2009 to take advantage of the lessons learned from the intercept demonstration, Daniels said.

If the 2008 demonstration is successful, it likely would be followed by attempts to shoot down longer-range missiles, Daniels said.

Other work that could follow a successful 2008 intercept demonstration could include testing the ABL against other airborne targets, and possibly using the system to track space debris, Hyslop said during a March 10 briefing for reporters.

The Power of Light: An Airborne Laser for Missile Defense
U.S. Air Force Plans for Future War in Space
Air Force to Focus on Quick Reaction Spacelift Vehicles

[Just plain old Punisher]

We shall see...

[Stormbringer]

And...

U.S. Air Force Plans for Future War in Space

http://www.space.com/businesstechnol...nd_040222.html

By Leonard David
Senior Space Writer
posted: 10:00 am ET
22 February 2004



The U.S. Air Force has filed a futuristic flight plan, one that spells out need for an armada of space weaponry and technology for the near-term and in years to come.

Called the Transformation Flight Plan, the 176-page document offers a sweeping look at how best to expand Americas military space tool kit.

The use of space is highlighted throughout the report, with the document stating that space superiority combines the following three capabilities: protect space assets, deny adversaries access to space, and quickly launch vehicles and operate payloads into space to quickly replace space assets that fail or are damaged/destroyed.

From space global laser engagement, air launched anti-satellite missiles, to space-based radio frequency energy weapons and hypervelocity rod bundles heaved down to Earth from space the U.S. Air Force flight plan portrays how valued space operations has become for the warfighter and in protecting the nation from chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, and high explosive attack.

Now to far-term needs

A number of space-related transformational capabilities are described in the document. While some of these are seen as needed in the near-term (until 2010), others are described as mid-term efforts in 2010-2015, while some efforts are viewed as far-term, beyond 2015.

Among a roster of projected Air Force space projects:

Air-Launched Anti-Satellite Missile: Small air-launched missile capable of intercepting satellites in low Earth orbit and seen as a past 2015 development.
Counter Satellite Communications System: Provides the capability by 2010 to deny and disrupt an adversary's space-based communications and early warning.
Counter Surveillance and Reconnaissance System: A near-term program to deny, disrupt and degrade adversary space-based surveillance and reconnaissance systems.
Evolutionary Air and Space Global Laser Engagement (EAGLE) Airship Relay Mirrors: Significantly extends the range of both the Airborne Laser and Ground-Based Laser by using airborne, terrestrial or space-based lasers in conjunction with space-based relay mirrors to project different laser powers and frequencies to achieve a broad range of effects from illumination to destruction.
Ground-Based Laser: Propagates laser beams through the atmosphere to Low-Earth Orbit satellites to provide robust, post-2015 defensive and offensive space control capability.
Hypervelocity Rod Bundles: Provides the capability to strike ground targets anywhere in the world from space.
Orbital Deep Space Imager: A mid-term predictive, near-real time common operating picture of space to enable space control operations.
Orbital Transfer Vehicle: Significantly adds flexibility and protection of U.S. space hardware in post-2015 while enabling on-orbit servicing of those assets.
Rapid Attack Identification Detection and Reporting System: A family of systems that will provide near-term capability to automatically identify when a space system is under attack.
Space-Based Radio Frequency Energy Weapon: A far-term constellation of satellites containing high-power radio-frequency transmitters that possess the capability to disrupt/destroy/disable a wide variety of electronics and national-level command and control systems. It would typically be used as a non-kinetic anti-satellite weapon.
Space-Based Space Surveillance System: A near-term constellation of optical sensing satellites to track and identify space forces in deep space to enable offensive and defensive counterspace operations.
Rapid launch needs

The newly issued Air Force document makes the following point: "The U.S. space capability rests on the foundation of assured access." There is need to deploy, replenish, sustain, and redeploy space-based forces in minimum time to allow them to accomplish the missions assigned to them - through all phases of conflict.

In this regard, the Air Force is exploring various future system concepts to launch, operate, and maintain space assets responsively. These include the Air Launch System, a dedicated, weather avoiding, on-demand (within 48 hours) system that can rocket into the sky at a wide variety of trajectories and can loft a Space Maneuver Vehicle, Common Aero Vehicle, or a conventional payload.

As explained in the Air Force document, a Space Operations Vehicle (SOV) enables an on-demand spacelift capability with rapid turnaround. This SOV can be one of the vehicles that could deploy the Space Maneuver vehicle a rapidly reusable orbital vehicle capable of executing a range of space control missions. In addition, the SOV can be utilized to deploy the Common Aero Vehicle, or CAV.

The CAV is an unpowered, maneuverable, hypersonic glide vehicle deployed in the 2010-2015 time period. The CAV could be delivered by a range of delivery vehicles such as an expendable or reusable small launch vehicle to a fully reusable Space Operations Vehicle. It can guide and dispense conventional weapons, sensors or other payloads world wide from and through space within one hour of tasking. It would be able to strike a spectrum of targets, including mobile targets, mobile time sensitive targets, strategic relocatable targets, or fixed hard and deeply buried targets. The CAVs speed and maneuverability would combine to make defenses against it extremely difficult.

Directed energy beams

Given the growing number of nations that utilize space, Air Force strategists see that trend as worrisome.

"The ability to deny an adversarys access to space services is essential so that future adversaries will be unable to exploit space in the same way the United States and its allies can. It will require full spectrum, sea, air, land, and space-based offensive counterspace systems capable of preventing unauthorized use of friendly space services and negating adversarial space capabilities from low Earth up to geosynchronous orbits.

The focus, when practical, will be on denying adversary access to space on a temporary and reversible basis," the document states.

Air Force scientists and technologists are busy in the labs exploring the possibility of putting a warning energy "spot" on any target worldwide that could be rapidly followed with varying levels of effects.

A possible breakthrough, the document adds, deals with a solid-state directed energy beam systems, operating at 100-kilowatt levels. "If the generation of large quantities of heat could be managed, the Air Force could develop highly effective, cheap, high power energy weapons."

For example, Air Force researchers are looking at ways to collect or generate large quantities of energy on orbit in order to rely on space-based platforms for more missions and provide a greater degree of true global presence. "This would change many equations about traditional ideas of rapid response," the document explains.

Sensor-to-shooter

The report emphasizes that space capabilities are integral to modern war fighting forces, providing critical surveillance and reconnaissance information, especially over areas of high risk or denied access for airborne craft.

Space capabilities also provide weather and other Earth observation data, global communications, precision position, navigation, and timing to troops on the ground, ships at sea, aircraft in flight, and weapons en route to targets.

Space assets are critical to achieving information superiority as they enable predictive and dominant battlespace awareness. As a result there can be a reduction in the "sensor-to-shooter" cycle to minutes or even seconds, the document explains.

Real-time picture of the battlespace would involve an initial space-based Ground Moving Target Indicator capability.

This capacity provides U.S. global strike forces with the ability to identify and track moving targets anywhere on the surface of the Earth. Also desirable is the ability to detect, locate, identify, and track a wide range of strategic and tactical targets that the United States currently has minimal capability to detect. These include weapons of mass destruction, hidden targets, and air moving targets.

A real-time picture of the battlespace enables a commander to know where all friendly forces are, not only to better coordinate operations and avoid fratricide -- accidentally injuring or killing your own troops.

Roadmap to the future

In a February 17 press statement issued from the office of the Secretary of the Air Force, the public document on Air Force transformation is described as "a roadmap to the future".

The Air Force flight plan is a reporting document that enables the Secretary of Defense to evaluate and interpret the Air Force's progress toward transformation.

"Transformation is using new things and old things in new ways, and achieving truly transformational effects for the joint warfighter," said Lt. Gen. Duncan McNabb, Air Force director of plans and programs.

The newly issued, publicly releasable report is the one unclassified document that presents an overarching picture of Air Force transformation, added Lt. Col. James McCaw, from the plans and programs directorate's transformation branch.

"It will help the reader understand where the Air Force is going, and why we chose this path," McCaw concluded.

[Sirgod]

Wasn't there a post awhile back about Space Marine Training awhile back? I'm almost positive there was.

Stephen

[Stormbringer]

Yeah. i remember it. but don't remember who posted it.