Defense Week January 20, 2004
Company Proposes Ground Laser To Protect Jetliners
By Ron Laurenzo
Northrop Grumman is proposing to develop a laser potentially capable of defending civilian airliners at U.S. airports from terrorist-fired missiles.
Placed at or near an airport, the laser would react "at the speed of light" to destroy any heat-seeking missile streaking up at a passenger jet, said Pat Caruana, vice president for Northrop Grumman Space Technology, in an interview.
The existence of the proposed system has been publicized, but not the fact that Northrop formally has pitched the laser to the Department of Homeland Security as an option for zapping terrorists' missiles before they blow up airliners.
Dubbed the Hazardous Ordnance Engagement Toolkit, which shortens to the more user-friendly HORNET, the system is a direct descendant of the company's Tactical High Energy Laser (THEL).
The laser originally was designed by TRW, which was acquired in December 2002 by Northrop Grumman. THEL is the most mature tactical laser in the world. It is a deuterium fluoride laser that has yet to be deployed. On the test range, it has picked off more than 30 artillery shells and Katyusha rockets in flight.
HORNET is a component of Northrop Grumman's overall proposal for the Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) initial six-month program to explore how military airplane-protection equipment can be adapted to protect civilian passenger jets. Of several systems being proposed to the government, HORNET is not only the sole destructive laser up for consideration, it is also the lone ground-based system (the others are aircraft-mounted infrared countermeasures).
Although the military uses lasers in many capacities-for communications, missile defense, targeting and blinding the optics of enemy missiles-THEL is the military's most advanced directed-energy technology, said John Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org. THEL is the only laser that has destroyed a flying target.
Developed in cooperation with several Israeli subcontractors, THEL was initiated as a way to protect settlements in northern Israel from artillery fire from Lebanese territory. When that threat dissipated, the system was not deployed but continued developmental work. The Army is interested in using a more mobile version of THEL in the future.
Heated competition
On Jan. 6, DHS announced it had accepted proposals for aircraft-protection equipment from Northrop Grumman, BAE Systems and United Airlines. Those three were picked from a field of 24 companies that had originally applied.
Each of the three winning teams will receive around $2 million to design and demonstrate prototypes until June, when DHS will select one or more of the companies for an 18-month study that could lead to a government-approved system to protect airliners.
Northrop Grumman's main proposal is based on its AAQ-24(V) Nemesis, which uses a laser jammer to blind the seeker of an incoming heat-seeking missile so it misses an aircraft. It does not destroy the missile. BAE Systems has proposed a variant of its ALQ-212 Advanced Threat Infrared Countermeasures system, also based on a laser jammer. The United Airlines system is built by Avisys and uses hot infrared decoys.
Caruana said HORNET is being proposed as more of a long-term solution to the overall terrorist missile threat.
One of its advantages, he said, is that it would be effective against all kinds of threats, including next-generation heat seekers, laser-beam riders and command-guided missiles, because it attacks the threat directly regardless of how its is being guided. The infrared countermeasure systems now under consideration are only useful against missiles that use a seeker that follows the heat from an aircraft's engines.
Arms experts believe just about every major terrorist or guerilla group in the world has heat-seeking missiles, but not the most advanced types.
Layered defense
Northrop Grumman is not proposing HORNET as a single solution to defending airliners, but as part of a layered defense that would include aircraft-mounted systems, airport security and modified flying procedures to make airliners less predictable targets. Caruana said it is too early to tell whether discussions with DHS about HORNET would continue if Nemesis, the primary proposal, is not selected.
HORNET is a conceptual idea, but because of its THEL heritage, Northrop Grumman says development could be completed in under five years. If a major effort were put forward and a lot of dollars available, especially for testing, that time could be shortened, Caruana said.
The THEL technology, including the infrared search and track system that would aim HORNET's laser, is proven and tested, he said.
While the government and Northrop Grumman have yet to hash out exactly how HORNET would be employed, Caruana said preliminary company studies indicate a single system would be adequate to protect airports at Los Angeles and some other major cities. To be effective, HORNET must have an unobstructed view of the area around an airport, especially near the runways where aircraft take off and land.
Assuming it goes forward, Caruana said HORNET would be integrated into the airport's own air-traffic radar, which would cue it to the location of a missile launch. HORNET would then scan that area with its own tracking system to acquire the target and destroy it.
"Transit time from energy source to target is the speed of light," said Caruana.
Being tied into the airport radar would save money by not requiring an independent radar. Also, the more HORNET is integrated into airport infrastructure, the better for its effectiveness and for public acceptance about its use, he said.
Although company literature shows a drawing of a HORNET system mounted on a truck, Caruana said that idea is really notional.
"The idea would be to put this somewhere where it would be as unobtrusive as any other feature aligned with an airport," he said. "Conceivably, you could put this on top of a tall building somewhere and nobody would ever see it."
Public-perception issues
While hitting a 152mm howitzer shell or a Katyusha rocket in flight is an impressive feat, those projectiles fall along a predictable path. Surface-to-air missiles are different, but still follow a "fairly proscribed route" on their way to intercept an airplane, Caruana said.
"The development of algorithms to accommodate this is well within hand," he said. "There is always a technical challenge, but I believe that the solution is bounded by virtue of what we've done to date."
Caruana acknowledged that there would likely be public concern about using a high-energy laser around airports and inside urban areas, but emphasized that the system does not pose a hazard.
For one thing, it is eye safe. Furthermore, the system's design would prevent it from obliterating an airliner or something else by accident, he said, because it would be programmed only to track and destroy surface-to-air missiles, which have distinct characteristics.
SAMS, whether command guided or heat-seeking, present sensors with the same signature: They are hot and moving very fast. Civilian airliners do not jump off the ground and accelerate immediately to the speed of sound, making them hard to confuse with missiles, he said.
The laser is also precise enough to go after a missile in a crowded airport environment without hitting other planes. Caruana could not comment on the size of the beam or how long it takes to destroy a missile, but he said the strength of the beam can be varied and the time is "very short."
"If it were not adequate to do this mission, we would not have proposed HORNET as aggressively as we have," he said.
© Copyright 2004, King Communications Group
