Encyclopedia > Airborne Laser

  Article Content

Airborne Laser

The Airborne Laser weapons system is designed to shoot down ballistic missiles in their boost stage. Attached to a Boeing 747-400F[?] freighter, it is still in the test period and if proven successful, a fleet of 7 Boeing 747 with ABL system will be operational by 2008.

The system uses a tracking beam to calculate the missile's course and speed. After locking on to the target the weapon class laser will fire a 3 to 5 second burst from a turret located on the nose of the plane, destroying the missile near its launch area.

The laser fired by the weapon is called a Chemical Oxygen Iodine Laser[?], or COIL, invented at Phillips Lab in 1977.



All Wikipedia text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License

 
  Search Encyclopedia

Search over one million articles, find something about almost anything!
 
 
  
  Featured Article
242

... 210s 220s 230s - 240s - 250s 260s 270s 280s 290s Years: 237 238 239 240 241 - 242 - 243 244 245 246 247 Events Patriarch Titus[?] succeeds Patriarch Eugenius I[?] as ...

 
 
 
This page was created in 20.7 ms