The Airborne Laser’s lethal shootdown demonstration will take place in August 2009, Boeing ABL program manager Greg Hyslop told reporters in Washington Tuesday afternoon at AFA’s Air & Space Conference. The high power integration is coming next year, and the ABL is scheduled for full system ground and flight testing between 2008 and 2009. Hyslop and Lockheed Martin’s ABL program director, Art Napolitano, both characterized the program as highly complex—in fact Napolitano said it has the most complicated optical system he’s seen in his more than 20 years in the industry. The Missile Defense Agency currently has money in its budget for a second ABL, noted Hyslop, but program officials earlier this year expressed great concern that Congress might derail the program.
Boeing received a $2.47 billion Air Force contract Nov. 25 for 15 more KC-46s, bringing to 183 the number of Pegasus tankers on contract to all customers, foreign and domestic. The new contract—for Lot 12 of the initially planned KC-46 buy—is to be completed by 2029.
