Space


Airborne Laser

References

The Airborne Laser Program Homepage The ABL program is managed by the Air Force Phillips Laboratory.

Airborne Laser Contract An archive of documents relating to the ABL contract and source selection process. Most of these are excruciatingly boring contract legalese, but this represents the major source of primary program information.

Airborne Laser (ABL) for Theater Missile Defense The Airborne Laser (ABL) program is developing design concepts to minimize engineering risks for an airborne, high-energy laser weapon demonstrator capable of acquiring, tracking, and killing theater ballistic missiles in boost phase. The Airborne Laser Experiment (ABLEX) was a series of experiments propagating a laser beam between two aircraft. Two defense industry teams, Boeing and Rockwell International, developed design concepts for the ABL which include a nose-mounted turret, a chemical oxygen-iodine laser, and a 747 aircraft. At the end of the concept design phase, the Boeing contractor team was selected to build a demonstrator that will be flight tested.

Airborne Laser (ABL) The Airborne Laser (ABL) Demonstrator Program is an Air Force Advanced Technology Demonstration program to develop and then demonstrate the necessary technologies to acquire, track, and destroy theater ballistic missiles during boost phase.

Phillips Laboratory Scoping Meeting For Airborne Laser 28 March 1995 - A meeting to discuss environmental concerns associated with the Phillips Laboratory's Airborne Laser Program was held April 4, 1995 to solicit public input on any environmental concerns.

BOEING, LOCKHEED MARTIN, TRW WIN AIRBORNE LASER CONTRACT November 12, 1996 -- The U. S. Air Force awarded a team of Boeing, TRW and Lockheed Martin a $1.1 billion contract to develop and flight test a laser weapon system to defend against theater ballistic missiles.

Airborne Laser @ Boeing As part of a US Air Force effort to address the feasibility of an airborne laser system for defense against those types of missiles, a team comprised of Boeing, TRW and Lockheed Martin has been exploring the concept of an accurate, airborne, high-energy laser.

Airborne Laser - Rockwell Team There were initially two teams competing for the program: the Rockwell / Hughes / Raytheon E-Systems / SVS R&D / Lockheed Martin / Parsons / SAIC team, and the Boeing / Lockheed / TRW team. The Airborne Laser contract was awarded on November 12, 1996.

Laser Beam Propagation and Control SPIE Proceedings Vol. 2120. Meeting Date: 01/23 - 01/29/94 - Abstracts for the papers in this volume are located in this file immediately following the contents list below. All papers are published by SPIE -- The International Society for Optical Engineering. Includes abstracts of reports on the Airborne laser experiment (ABLEX) series of experiments.

Airborne Laser Experiment to study performance limits of turbulence compensation systems from OE Reports December 1995 issue An interview Russell Butts, Air Force Phillips Laboratory - ABLEX is an acronym for Airborne Laser Experiment, which was an experiment which propagated a laser beam from one aircraft to another aircraft. At the receiver aircraft, an 80-cm telescope and optical system imaged the intensity pattern incident across the aperture onto a focal plane where the intensity patterns were recorded.

FTC NEGOTIATES SETTLEMENT WITH HUGHES OVER ITEK ACQUISITION; FEBRUARY 9, 1996 - The sale of assets between one of the partners in each of the two teams competing for a $700 million Air Force contract could raise prices or reduce investments in technology and quality for a critical component of an Air Force anti-missile program, the Federal Trade Commission has alleged. Today, the FTC announced it has reached a settlement of these allegations with General Motors and its subsidiaries, Hughes Electronics and Hughes Danbury Optical Systems. The FTC said the settlement will ensure continued competition for "deformable mirrors," part of the adaptive optics system that allow an anti-missile system to correct for distortions in the atmosphere. The affected system is the Air Force's Airborne Laser (ABL) program.