Airborne Laser offers new era for ballistic missile defense

Unlike other missile defense systems, which require one or more interceptors to destroy a single ballistic missile, an ABL can destroy up to 20 missiles before its chemical supply is depleted and must be refilled. Thus, a handful of ABL planes potentially could provide around-the-clock protection against fairly sizable missile attacks emanating from a country such as North Korea.

Since ABL is an airborne system, it can be deployed anywhere in the world on short notice. In addition to its primary mission of intercepting ballistic missiles, it is intrinsically capable of performing other missions such as early warning of missile launches, estimation of launch and impact points, target cueing of other defensive systems and defense against airborne targets such as cruise missiles.

The Airborne Laser is the most revolutionary system in current missile defense plans, combining speed-of-light interception with low costs per kill and global mobility. Its scheduled shootdown of a ballistic target in 2009 will be the first time such a feat has ever been achieved at great distance by a high-power laser.

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