The airborne laser test bed will make its next attempt to shoot down a boosting ballistic missile late Tuesday night (Pacific Time) off the coast of California, Army Lt. Gen. Patrick O’Reilly, Missile Defense Agency director, said Tuesday. Back in February, the ALTB (formerly called the Airborne Laser, or ABL) knocked down a Scud missile-type target over the Pacific from a distance of more than 50 miles. This time around, ALTB’s megawatt laser beam will attempt the same feat, but at twice the distance, O’Reilly told defense reporters in Washington, D.C. He said data from the February shots led MDA officials to conclude that “we can operate at twice the range,” although the exact test distances are classified. Some analysis indicates ALTB “might have an even greater range,” he noted. The test bed is a modified 747 aircraft that fires the laser from a nose turret.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth this week released strategies meant to focus the Pentagon’s “alphabet soup” of innovation organizations and proliferate artificial intelligence—moves that experts say could provide the structure needed to make the military’s efforts to integrate and field new technology more effective.
