Airborne Laser Uses Light Energy To Target Ballistic Missile

An airborne missile helped turn science fiction into fact this week by using a lethal amount of light energy to target and destroy a ballistic missile. The airborne laser is called the Airborne Laser Testbed (ALTB) and can travel at 4,000 miles per hour. The beam of the airborne laser, while only the size of a basketball, took mere seconds to target and split the missile.

The breakthrough in terms of science fiction, is the fact that light energy was harnessed and effectively used for missile defence. Northrop Grumman's Aerospace Systems believe that this ALTB airborne missile is unprecedented in terms of its precision, lethality, and overall mobility.

The experiment with the ALTB  airborne laser was a proof-of-concept demonstration for directed energy at a ballistic missile from an airborne platform. The high energy laser is held in the back end of a modified Boeing 747-400F