The Airborne Laser has aced another “significant development milestone,” says Air Force Lt. Gen. Trey Obering, head of the Missile Defense Agency, when it successfully completed its first of two low power system integration-active flight test knowledge points. In other words, the ABL’s battle management and beam control/fire control systems tracked, targeted, and engaged an airborne target. More tests follow before technicians install the aircraft’s Chemical Oxygen-Iodine Laser later this year at Edwards AFB, Calif.
The Space Force must invest in high-level training based on the lessons learned from an unprecedented level of electronic warfare (EW) used by both Russia and Ukraine in the conflict there, one of the service’s top EW leaders said on April 24. “What we have seen in the Ukraine-Russia conflict…