Raw Nuclear DEW Research
Maxwell C. Bridges
2015-07-11
Expand All Part / Hide All Part
Expand All Sections / Hide All Sections
During a period of unemployment in 2015, I obtained a library card to my institution of higher education. This gave me access to not only their public bookstacks, but also to online repositories of information to which the library subscribed.
The goal of the research was to learn the approximate state of DEW and nuclear technology at the turn of the century (2000) from the public record. Literature searches were limited by date and topic. Much could be learned of the revelance of material from its abstract, which is generally easily accessible from repository search results and doesn't require going behind pay-walls (via a personally paid subsciption).
Online make it easy to simply create a list of everything coming from the search results. If interesting, copy what is relevant from its abstract. Deep-dive into the publication if the scent-of-the-information from the abstract deemed it worthy, and put those citations also into the list.
The list (Part 1) ended up being pretty big, so only the most important and relevant research items were copied into the much shorter list (Part 2).
The articles are reproduced in accordance with Section 107 of title 17 of the Copyright Law of the United States relating to fair-use and is for the purposes of criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research.
{Author's post-notes are inserted in curly braces. This is unfinished. }
Part 1: Literature Review
x1 Michael A. Aquino, Ph.D. : The Neutron Bomb
1980
The Neutron Bomb by Michael A. Aquino, Ph.D., 1980.
x2 Taylor, Theodore B. : THIRD-GENERATION NUCLEAR WEAPONS
1987
Accession number:1987100153734
Title:THIRD-GENERATION NUCLEAR WEAPONS.
Authors:Taylor, Theodore B. (0)
Corresponding author:Taylor, Theodore B.
Source title:Scientific American
Abbreviated source title:Sci Am
Volume:256
Issue:4
Issue date:Apr 1987
Publication year:1987
Pages:30-39
Language:English
ISSN:00368733
CODEN:SCAMAC
Document type:Journal article (JA)
Abstract:
Unlike deployed nuclear weapons, which unleash their explosive energy indiscriminately, future nuclear weapons may selectively produce certain types of energy and concentrate them on targets. By altering the shape of the nuclear explosive and manipulating other design features, weapons could be built that generate and direct beams of radiation or streams of metallic pellets or droplets at such targets as missile-launch facilities on the ground, missiles in the air and satellites in space. These weapons would be as removed from current nuclear weapons in terms of military effectiveness as a rifle is technologically distant from gunpowder.
Main heading:MILITARY EQUIPMENT
Controlled terms:NUCLEAR EXPLOSIONS
Uncontrolled terms:NUCLEAR WEAPONS
Classification code:404 Civil Defense and Military Engineering - 621 Nuclear Reactors - 932 High Energy Physics; Nuclear Physics; Plasma Physics
Treatment:General review (GEN)
Database:Compendex
Compilation and indexing terms, Copyright 2015 Elsevier Inc.
x3 Klass, P : Defense, Energy Departments to initiate new space power development.
1985
Defense, Energy Departments to initiate new space power development.
Author: Klass, P J11 Aviat. Week Space Technol., 1221 Ave. Americas, New York, NY 10020, USA
Abstract:
A new program to develop space power systems capable of supplying 5-10 megawatts, or as much as 100 megawatts in brief bursts, for directed and kinetic energy weapons, will be launched this summer to complement the SP-100 program to develop nuclear space power systems capable of generating 100 kw. or more. Although the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the Defense Dept. and Energy Dept. are joint sponsors of SP-100, the space agency is not expected to participate in the multimegawatt effort because it has no foreseeable near-term requirement for such high powers. Discussions to define the multi-megawatt program are under way between the Pentagon and Enegy Dept., and a memorandum of agreement is expected around midyear.
Links: http://condor.library.colostate.edu/sfx_local?url_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:journal&genre=article&sid=ProQ:ProQ%3Ahealthsafetyabstracts&atitle=Defense%2C+Energy+Departments+to+initiate+new+space+power+development.&title=Aviation+Week+and+Space+Technology&issn=00052175&date=1985-01-01&volume=122&issue=5&spage=89&au=Klass%2C+P+J&isbn=&jtitle=Aviation+Week+and+Space+Technology&btitle=&rft_id=info:eric/&rft_id=info:doi/
Subject: weapons; electric power generation; nuclear energy
Classification: H SA2.11: SAFETY ENGINEERING; H SI11.11: SAFETY ENGINEERING
Identifier / keyword: aerospace engineering, aerospace engineering
Title: Defense, Energy Departments to initiate new space power development.
Correspondence author: Klass, P J �
Publication title: Aviation Week and Space Technology
Volume: 122
Issue: 5
Pages: 89-91
Number of pages: 3
Publication year: 1985
Year: 1985
ISSN: 0005-2175
Source type: Scholarly Journals
Language of publication: English
Document type: Journal Article
Subfile: Health & Safety Science Abstracts
Update: 2006-11-01
x4 Norman, C : Doubt Cast on Laser Weapons: An American Physical Society report says major technical advances and at least another decade of research will be required to determine whether directed energy weapons will work.
1987
Doubt Cast on Laser Weapons: An American Physical Society report says major technical advances and at least another decade of research will be required to determine whether directed energy weapons will work.
Author: Norman, C
http://search.proquest.com/docview/733193622?accountid=10223
Abstract: None available.
Title: Doubt Cast on Laser Weapons: An American Physical Society report says major technical advances and at least another decade of research will be required to determine whether directed energy weapons will work.
Correspondence author: Norman, C �
Publication title: Science (New York, N.Y.)
Journal abbreviation: Science
Volume: 236
Issue: 4801
Pages: 509-510
Number of pages: 2
Publication year: 1987
Year: 1987
ISSN: 0036-8075
x5 John R. Huizenga : Cold Fusion: The Scientific Fiasco of the Century
1992
x6 Andrew Holmes-Siedle & Len Adams : Handbook of Radiation Effects
1993
x7 George W. Ullrich : Summary of the DNA SMES Development Program
1995
IEEE Transactions on Applied Superconductivity, Vol. 5, No. 2, June 1995
Abstract
In 1987 the Strategic Defense Initiative Organization (SDIO) initiated a program at the Defense Nuclear Agency (DNA) to develop Superconducting Magnetic Energy Storage (SMES) as a short-duration, highpower source for a Free-Electron LaseyDirected Energy Weapon. SMES was also recognized as being able to fulfill the important civilian electric utility application of diurnal storage. In 1986 the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) had proposed an Engineering Test Model (ETM) as the logical next step in SMES development. Since the military and civilian requirements for energy storage were similar, the SMES ETM development was proposed as a dual-use program from the outset. DNA was selected to manage the program because of its experience managing the development of hih-power nuclear-effects simulators. This paper kimmarizes the management results and conclusions of the two-phase SMES-ETM development program.
I. Introduction
In 1987, the Defense Nuclear Agency (DNA) was tasked by the Department of Defense's @OD) Strategic Defense Initiative Organization (SDI0)-recently renamed the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization-to undertake management of a dual-use (military-electric utilities) program to design, construct, and demonstrate a 20 MWh Superconducting Magnetic Energy Storage (SMES) Engineering Test Model (ETM). This SMES-ETM was to demonstrate a dual-use technology that could be scaled to full-size SMES plants storing 1000 to 5000 MWh. At this capacity, the SMES plants were to provide power for the military ground-based, free-electron laser (GBFEL) directed-energy weapon under development by the SDIO. For electric utilities, these large SMES plants were to provide diurnal storage of electric energy to level the daynight cycle of electricity usage. The 20 MWh SMES-ETM was to demonstrate, among other things, the technology required for earth support to withstand the large radial Lorentz bursting forces in the charged magnet. Earth support, sometimes referred to as warm support, was thought to be necessary for large SMES plants to be economically competitive for electric utility use.
SDIO asked DNA to manage the SMES-ETM program owing to a cadre of management and technical expertise which DNA had developed as a consequence of more than a decade of expeiience in developing large, one-of-a-kind, high-power bremsstrahlung machines whose x-ray spectra provided simulations of those emitted in the detonation of a nuclear weapon. DNA had a responsibility to the DoD to provide such simulations to test and ensure the survivability and operational capability of equipment used by U.S. military forces. DNA had no prior experience with either superconductivity or with large magnets.
DNA began its SMES-ETM program with perceptions formed from the contemporary views of, and writings on, this emerging technology. Here we review this history, describe DNA's SMES-ETM program, and relate its results.
Viewed most simply, a SMES plant consists of a currentcarrying superconducting coil held at temperatures low enough to maintain its superconductivity, together with an associated power conditioning system (PCS) necessary to establish an appropriate interface with a power source and with the system being served.
...
V. Conclusions
DNA has conducted successfully what we believe to be the largest, most complex, designated dual-use program yet undertaken by the U.S. Government.
For the military, we have now introduced, in a program with the U.S. Air Force, the off-the-shelf very small SMES (so-called micro-SMES; about 1 MJ in storage capacity) for local power quality enhancement.
For the electric utility industry, we have delivered a SMES design that is now ready for commercial exploitation. We have, thereby, provided to the U.S. an important technical edge in what is certain to be an expanding, international marketplace.
x8 : New World Vistas Air and Space Power for the 21st Century: Directed Energy Volume
1996?
x9 Frank L. Goldstein, Col, USAF : Psychological Operations: Principles and Case Studies
1996
x10 Robert M. Mayo : Nuclear Concepts for Engineers
1998
x11 Wall, Robert : Advance Technology To Protect High- and Low-Risk Facilities
1998-08
Abstract:
The nation's top soldier says that improving the defenses of high risk overseas US facilities has driven terrorists to attack more poorly defended, low-threat sites. US researchers are trying to quickly develop advanced equipment to lessen vulnerabilities at high- and low-risk facilities. The US Air Force is conducting demonstrations of new technology such as unmanned aerial vehicles and explosives detectors as part of an overall Pentagon effort to strengthen the defenses of forward operating bases.
Full Text:
The nation's top soldier says that improving the defenses of high risk overseas U.S. facilities has driven terrorists to attack more poorly defended, low-threat sites.
U.S. researchers are trying to quickly develop advanced equipment to lessen vulnerabilities at high- and low-risk facilities. The U.S. Air Force, for example, is conducting demonstrations of new technology such as unmanned aerial vehicles and explosives detectors as part of an overall Pentagon effort to strengthen the defenses of forward operating bases.
SHAKEN BY THE 1996 BOMBING of the Khobar Towers complex in Saudi Arabia that killed 19 U.S. military personnel, USAF officials made force protection a high priority. However, evidence of continuing weakness of U.S. facilities was reinforced Aug. 7 when terrorists exploded bombs at the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. Those events ``serve to focus all of us that somewhere in the world someone is sitting out there planning the demise and destruction of our people,'' said Brig. Gen. Richard A. Coleman, USAF's director for force protection.
After Khobar, USAF made force protection an integral part of its operations plans, moved bases to remote locations where they could be more easily defended, strengthened and expanded perimeter defenses, and improved training and equipment for security force personnel. ``We don't move people unless we're prepared to protect them,'' Coleman said.
Now, in response to the two East Africa attacks, Army Gen. Henry Shelton, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has ordered all the warfighting commanders-in-chief to review security yet again. Shelton wrote,``We have made great progress in force protection efforts since the bombing of Khobar Towers. Ironically, however, the strength of our efforts in medium- and high-threat areas may be driving terrorists to attack where the threat to our personnel is judged as low.'' Coleman said procedures are being constantly evaluated and will receive renewed scrutiny in light of the latest bombings.
There are several initiatives under consideration within USAF to strengthen force protection. Gen. John Jumper, USAF commander in Europe (USAFE), is considering establishing a multi-disciplinary force protection organization that would specifically serve his command and could be deployed to any USAFE location. The unit would be modeled after the 820th Security Force Group at Lackland AFB, Tex., which is a rapid-reaction force that can be deployed worldwide. It includes all elements of security forces, including intelligence and operations analysts.
Furthermore, preliminary thought is being given to equipping short-range UAVs with both non-lethal and lethal weapons, a USAF official said. A UAV with an air-to-ground capability could destroy or slow an attack on an air base. Non-lethal technologies that may be UAV-mounted or ground-based include high-power microwave systems and directed energy weapons. However, acoustics, which the Pentagon has looked at, aren't regarded as effective as blasts of microwaves and directed energy. The high power microwave and directed energy systems could also be used in urban environments because there is no associated collateral damage.
MOST OF USAF'S FORCE protection initiatives are being developed in the Force Protection Battlelab that was established last year at Lackland. It recently conducted a demonstration in conjunction with the UAV Battlelab, Eglin AFB, Fla., to determine if unmanned aircraft carrying electro-optical/infrared payloads could increase the effectiveness of force protection units. Air Force planners wanted to see if UAVs could scout an area better than regular patrols. The early assessment is that ``there does in fact appear to be some benefit to using a UAV,'' USAF Capt. Joel Dickinson, project leader for the Airborne Force Protection Surveillance System, said.
The battlelabs were going to experiment with both a vertical take-off and landing UAV--the Camcopter built by Austrian Schiebel Technology, and a conventional take-off and landing system, the TS1000 built by Mesa, Ariz.-based Thorpe See-Op Corp. However, the TS1000 didn't participate in the scheduled demonstration because it couldn't meet USAF requirements. Air Force researchers believe the fixed-wing UAV would have had an advantage in flat terrain where it can cover ground faster than a VTOL system. However, for more rugged terrain a vertical take-off UAV's ability to hover would give it an advantage, Dickinson said.
CAMCOPTER WAS TESTED in five scenarios at Ft. Sumner, N.M. For comparison, force protection troops played through the same scenarios. The missions included reconnaissance of a 3-sq.-km. area to determine where a base could be most effectively attacked, as well as determining how well the air vehicle can respond to perimeter alerts--both false alarms and actual incursions, USAF Maj. Tim Spaeth, project manager at the UAV Battlelab, said.
Observers said the benefits of using a UAV include getting to locations faster and being able to avoid sending troops into an unknown and possibly dangerous situation. Dickinson added that the UAV can provide detailed information about the capabilities of an aggressor before force protection troops are deployed. That allows the force protection unit to be appropriately tailored to respond to the threat. With enough air vehicles, a 24-hr. watch-post could be established over an air base.
THE GREATEST CHALLENGE in using the unmanned aircraft is teaching force protection troops to properly exploit the provided imagery. ``There's going to be a training curve to get security forces used to looking at things from a helicopter viewpoint,'' Dickinson said. USAF plans to conduct more demos with VTOL and CTOL systems. Those could involve camouflaged targets and heavier terrain.
Additionally, the battlelab is putting together a system that can detect explosives or chemical or biological agents that are hidden on a vehicle, Col. Donald Collins, director of the Force Protection Battlelab, said. That effort grew directly out of a Central Command tasking after Khobar. USAF plans a proof of concept experiment in November in which various detection systems are tied together to discover dangerous substances. A notional operational scenario calls for a truck to be X-rayed, and once something unusual is detected other sensors will be used to try to isolate the substance.
Collins said the hope is for technology to mature so the explosives and agents can be detected by unattended, forward deployed sensors long before the vehicle reaches base perimeters. That would avoid endangering even security forces who are most at risk from bombs on vehicles. However, ``the technology isn't there yet,'' he said.
Other battlelab initiatives include a risk management tool for base commanders. This computer system would allow commanders to assess base vulnerabilities and model possible outcomes if an attack takes place. The lab also wants to pursue a program to mitigate blast damages of an explosion. Furthermore, the lab is pursuing an effort to protect food and water supplied to U.S. forces. The multipath effort will look at trying to track the food and water supply overseas until it reaches the base. It will also use technology to detect pathogens that may have been placed in food and water. Collins noted that food and water are still vulnerability points for U.S. forces--both overseas and in the U.S. Active denial technologies, such as HPM and DEW systems, is another area the battlelab wants to focus on in the future.
THE RECONNAISSANCE UAV and standoff detection system ``we need quickly,'' Coleman said. He held out hope they'll be available in 24 months. However, he cautioned against putting too much importance on hardware. ``Technology can do a lot; it's a force saver,'' he said, ``but sensors and alarms don't respond. That takes a person with a rifle in their hands.''
Publication title: Aviation Week & Space Technology
Volume: 149
Issue: 7
Pages: 72
Number of pages: 0
Publication year: 1998
Publication date: August 17, 1998
x12 Fulghum, David A : Airborne Laser Aimed At New Defense Roles
1998-10
Abstract:
The successful test of a TRW-designed laser recently has opened the door for a valid demonstration of the device's usefulness as a weapon against ballistic missiles. Less obviously, this test will allow the airborne laser to begin taking on crucial new missions. A study and cost analysis of collateral missions for the airborne laser will not be ready for presentation to senior Air Force Combat Command officials until spring 1999. The airborne laser aircraft is to begin a test program in 2001.
Full text:
The successful test of a TRW-designed laser recently has opened the door for a valid demonstration of the device's usefulness as a weapon against ballistic missiles.
Less obviously, this test will allow the airborne laser to begin taking on crucial new missions.
At the top of the list of potential missions is the airborne laser's use as a defense against cruise missiles and as a passive, long-range optical reconnaissance platform.
``The technology is ready,'' said Paul Shennum, Boeing's vice president for the ABL joint program office. ``We're getting to the point now where quite a few of these things appear really feasible,'' agreed Air Force Col. Michael Booen, the airborne laser program director. ``We're still looking at cruise missile defense. That looks promising. [Moreover, some of the adjunct missions] are relatively cheap.''
The ability to produce the power they need from a laser module almost six years before the YAL-1A is to become operational has let program officials begin to look more seriously at missions for the airborne laser other than intercepting theater ballistic missiles (AW&ST Sept. 14, p. 22).
A study and cost analysis of collateral missions for the airborne laser will not be ready for presentation to senior Air Combat Command officials until spring 1999, program officials said.
``This [laser's success] is going to break the door down for directed energy weapons,'' Booen said. ``In general, there are no radical changes we have to make [to conduct adjunct missions]. None of them are very expensive. Sometimes it involves more software or more optics. That could mean more optical elements so we can use the sensors in different ways, [or] possibly some small additions to the optics [additional sensors]. That's what we've got to talk to Air Combat Command about. If we needed the additional optics, would they be willing to put those on the jet?''
Initial indications are that five areas identified last year are still valid and may cost less than had earlier been thought. These are:
-- Imaging and reconnaissance using the 1.5-meter optical telescope to find and identify air and ground targets and formations, observe traffic and conduct battle damage assessment at ranges of several hundred miles.
-- Protection of high-value aircraft such as AWACS, Joint-STARS and itself by destroying anti-aircraft missiles launched from the ground or other aircraft.
-- Suppression of air defenses by combining target data from various intelligence sources to attack enemy missiles while they are still on the ground as well as the radars that control them.
-- Command and control through searching the battlefield for infrared signatures to cue other weapons and to provide a command with a first look at theater threats.
-- Defense against low-flying cruise missiles even a year ago was thought too difficult a task for the YAL-1A, but indications are that the Air Force is reassessing the flying laser's capabilities against those small, sometimes stealthy, targets.
Cruise missile defense has looked more promising as ``we've gotten into more of the details,'' Booen said. ``Obviously we can shoot the high fliers a little bit further than we can shoot the low fliers because they look more like the missiles we were designed to [attack],'' he said. ``[But, now] we're looking at the whole envelope.''
Booen said program officials look at ABL as part of the family of systems designed for theater missile defense which encompasses both cruise and ballistic weapons.
``We've tried to design in the connectivity between us and Joint-STARS and AWACS,'' Booen said. ``We have infrared and optical sensors on board so that data is what we'll be sending down JTIDS and Link 16 [which are the primary digital communications links].''
Program officials refused to comment on whether the YAL-1A's infrared sensors would be sensitive enough to pick up the small exhaust signatures of cruise missiles, many of which are expected to have stealthy designs or radar absorbing coatings.
Among these potential missions, cruise missile defense could move to a fast track. The YAL-1A may take its place as one of the pillars of the classified cruise missile defense plan that includes the E-3 AWACS, E-8 Joint-STARS and an upgraded version of the AIM-120 Amraam air-to-air missile (AW&ST Aug. 24, p. 22).
The cruise missile defense system is scheduled to be demonstrated in 2004-05 and operational by 2010 which fits well with the YAL-1A's expected operational debut around 2005. Stealthy cruise missiles are expected to be on the world market about the same time.
As the basic plan now stands, the AWACS' long-range S-band radar would spot the incoming cruise missile and cue an Amraam-carrying fighter to shoot its missile into a certain point in the sky, referred to as a basket.
The AWACS would also digitally tell the Joint-STARS' big, high-definition X-band radar where to look to better target and identify the cruise missile. The Joint-STARS also would direct the air-to-air weapon until its own sensors could see the cruise missile and complete the intercept.
The TRW-designed laser is to be built as a module that can be stacked in the Air Force's YAL-1A airborne laser, a specialized Boeing 747-400F. The initial test of the multihundred-kw. chemical oxygen iodine laser was conducted on June 3. The test program for the flight-weighted laser module was completed in late August at TRW's Capistrano Test Site near San Clemente, Calif.
The ability of the Boeing, TRW, Lockheed Martin team to go from ``first light'' with the laser through completion of a 26-test program in less than three months is an indicator of the overall technical health of the project, Booen said. The system's critical design review is scheduled for July 1999.
THE AIRBORNE LASER aircraft is to begin a test program in 2001 at White Sands Missile Range, N.M., involving the launch of a variety of missiles to verify the surveillance and command and control system, Booen said.
The YAL-1A's first attempt to destroy a missile in flight with a laser is to be made in 2002 with the target to be a surrogate theater ballistic missile fired over the Pacific from Vandenberg AFB, Calif. As currently planned, the program is to produce seven laser-armed aircraft.
Photograph
Photograph: Photograph: The successful test of the ABL's laser opens many new possibilities for employment of the airborne weapon such as the destruction of cruise missiles and suppression of enemy air defenses.
Subject: Lasers; Military weapons; Missiles; Product testing; Defense
Location: US
Classification: 9190: US; 8650: Electrical, electronics, instrumentation industries; 8680: Transportation equipment industry; 7500: Product planning & development
Publication title: Aviation Week & Space Technology
Volume: 149
Issue: 14
Pages: 111
Number of pages: 0
Publication year: 1998
Publication date: October 5, 1998
x13 Marvin J. Weber : Handbook of Laser Wavelengths
1999
Weber, M. J. �Frontmatter�
Handbook of Laser Wavelengths.
Ed. Marvin J. Weber
Boca Raton: CRC Press LLC, 1999
SECTION 1: INTRODUCTION
SECTION 2: SOLID STATE LASERS
2.1 Crystalline Paramagnetic Ion Lasers
2.2 Glass Lasers
2.3 Solid State Dye Lasers
2.4 Color Center Lasers
2.5 Semiconductor Lasers
2.6 Polymer Lasers
SECTION 3: LIQUID LASERS
3.1 Organic Dye Lasers
3.2 Rare Earth Liquid Lasers
SECTION 4: GAS LASERS
4.1 Neutral Atom, Ionized, and Molecular Gas Lasers
4.2 Optically Pumped Far Infrared and Millimeter Wave Lasers
4.3 References
SECTION 5: OTHER LASERS
5.1 Extreme Ultraviolet and Soft X-Ray Lasers
5.2 Free Electron Lasers
5.3 Nuclear Pumped Lasers
5.4 Natural Lasers
5.5 Inversionless Lasers
SECTION 6: COMMERCIAL LASERS
6.1 Solid State Lasers
6.2 Semiconductor Lasers
6.3 Dye Lasers
6.4 Gas Lasers
x14 North, David M : The Next Century of Flight
1999-01
Abstract:
An editorial businesses how Aviation Week & Space Technology will begin a new series of Viewpoints. This series will examine what might be expected in The Next Century of Flight.
Full text:
As editor-in-chief of a magazine that has closely followed--and even tried to foretell--the amazing advances of aviation and aerospace in the first century of flight, I have the privilege of introducing a new series of Viewpoints. This series will examine what we might expect in The Next Century of Flight. Each month, through December 2003, we will offer Viewpoints that are thought-provoking, insightful and not afraid to topple icons of the past, present and future.
In our reporting, Aviation Week & Space Technology started looking ahead to the oncoming century with a 32-page special report on 21st Century Fighters in the Aug. 3, 1998, issue. This week, we turn to satellites, and what we found may surprise you (see p. 56). As the year goes on, we will apply the same approach to different subjects--transports, business aviation and space launch vehicles in the 21st century.
On this page, we want to go beyond the vehicles and technologies that will shape the world of flight. We want to raise the provocative issues and ask the basic questions that will--or could--shape flight and the industries that make it possible. We will ask not just What? and How?, but Why? and perhaps most important, Why Not?
Sometimes it seems like we were there on the sands of Kitty Hawk with Orville and Wilbur Wright. The magazine doesn't go back quite that far. We've only been at it 83 years. We certainly wouldn't pretend to have all of the answers, or even all of the good questions. We will be turning to far-thinking people who can look into the next century and tell us what changes to expect in specific areas. These Viewpoints will cover all aspects of our industry, including commercial transport, military, space, business aviation, avionics, aeronautical engineering and aerospace business issues. Naturally, the Viewpoints will be international in coverage.
My own involvement in aviation began more than 40 years ago. In fact, I received my U.S. Navy wings almost exactly 40 years ago next week following my last flight in a Grumman F9F-5 Panther. When I look at the most recent aircraft I have flown, which include the Boeing F/A-18F Super Hornet and Bell Boeing V-22 Osprey, I can see the advances during the past 40 years in aerodynamics, engine reliability, manufacturing techniques and especially avionics. Aerospace technology and space exploration are advancing on an exponential scale, and even the first 20 years of the next century should provide us with some truly remarkable changes for the better.
And yet I wonder:
-- What is the future for pilots in combat aircraft? Will UAVs fight future wars?
-- Will Airbus become the dominant supplier of civil transports? Will Airbus and Boeing maintain their duopoly, or will a third player emerge? Whose view of envelope protection will prevail? How far will aviation go in automating cockpits?
-- Where will aerospace consolidation lead? Will the industry giants become transnational behemoths, or will security considerations prevent that?
-- Will the space shuttle still be flying in 2050? What will it take to make reusable launchers a reality? How about space tourism? Will humans reach Mars in the next century?
-- Will we ever see a true renaissance in general aviation? How small a gas turbine engine will the market accept? Will it accept radical new designs, or does it want ``classic'' designs forever updated?
-- Will combat forces ever be in space? What is the future of directed energy weapons? Will there ever be an effective defense against ballistic missiles? What are the limits of stealth technology?
-- What is the future of civil supersonic aircraft? Will there be a supersonic business jet? If the world begins to run out of oil, how will that affect aviation?
When you let your mind go, the questions are limitless. I am asking you, our readers, to help identify issues we should address. I would like you to think of subjects, and even the best two or three people to write about them.
What are the remarkable changes likely to take place in the next century, and who are those people you believe are best qualified to explain them and wrestle with the big issues? You may e-mail me at north@mh.com or Washington Bureau Chief Jim Asker at asker@mh.com. Our fax number is +1 (202) 383-2347.
Subject: Editorials; Millennium; Predictions; Aviation; R & D; Research & development
Location: US
Classification: 8350: Transportation industry; 8680: Transportation equipment industry; 9000: Short article; 9190: US; 5400: Research & development
Publication title: Aviation Week & Space Technology
Volume: 150
Issue: 4
Pages: 86
Number of pages: 0
Publication year: 1999
Publication date: January 25, 1999
x15 Wall, Robert : AFSOC Prefers EC-767 to EC-130J
1999-02
Abstract:
US Air Force Special Operations Command planners want to replace AFSOC's aging EC-130E Commando Solo II radio and television broadcast aircraft with larger Boeing 767-300s, rather than with Lockheed Martin C-130-Js that are now being bought. As the 6 existing Commando Solos are replaced, AFSOC would like to greatly expand the capability of the system.
Full text:
U.S. Air Force Special Operations Command planners want to replace AFSOC's aging EC-130E Commando Solo II radio and television broadcast aircraft with larger Boeing 767-300s, rather than with Lockheed Martin C-130Js that are now being bought.
As the six existing Commando Solos are replaced, AFSOC would like to greatly expand the capability of the system. The future system, labeled EC-X and not expected to be fielded until 2015, would broaden the Air Force's information operations capability, said USAF Lt. Col. Dan Baradon, AFSOC's chief of long-range planning.
New missions that would likely be incorporated into the new aircraft include controlling unmanned aircraft that could rebroadcast transmissions from the EC-767 mothership. That remote broadcast capability would allow operators to place transmitters very close to receivers in hostile territory without exposing the aircrew to enemy air defenses. As future information warfare tools are developed, they would be integrated into the system.
The old EC-130Es are equipped with analog broadcast systems operating in AM, FM, high-frequency, TV and military communication bands. The new aircraft would provide growth for emerging broadcast requirements, such as high-definition television. It would also provide an opportunity to replace the analogue systems with more capable, digital equipment.
CONGRESS HAS ALREADY provided funding for the first C-130J to be modified into an EC-130J by stripping an EC-130E and rehosting the equipment on the new aircraft. All the Commando Solos are operated by the Air National Guard's 193rd Special Operations Wing. While the C-130J overcomes aging aircraft problems that exist with the EC-130E, it doesn't provide the growth potential or range AFSOC would like, Baradon said. The EC-130Js being brought on-line now, he said, could serve as a bridge until EC-X.
An EC-767 would have more than double the space for mission equipment compared with an EC-130J, Baradon said. Furthermore, as the Air Force transitions to an expeditionary force, the long-range 767 is seen as a better fit to emerging deployment needs. It would allow them to reach most trouble spots in hours from the U.S. Baradon noted that the EC-767 could also stay on-station much longer than the EC-130J.
AFSOC also was examining the Boeing 757 as a candidate, largely because it is cheaper than the 767. But the space and range attributed to the 767 caused it to prevail in mission analyses. Using a commercial aircraft appeals to the special operations planners because it would allow them to repair the system using commercial facilities available virtually worldwide. Furthermore, for pilot training, commercial simulators could be used rather than having to set up a unique infrastructure.
In the future, the Air Force will consider moving some of the Commando Solo missions to unmanned aircraft and to space. However, building a system in space that has enough broadcast power to do the special operations mission isn't expected to be technically feasible until at least the next generation after EC-X.
Getting funding for the new aircraft will be a major hurdle for AFSOC. To mitigate the problem, the command has moved EC-X purchases beyond 2010 because, before then, most Air Force money will be tied up in buying F-22s and Joint Strike Fighters. The funding hurdle also affects AFSOC's other long-term modernization needs, which include:
-- The stealthy MC-X transport. It notionally would carry a 20,000-lb. package on a 1,000-mi. combat radius (AW&ST May 11, 1998, p. 72). Its fielding, which has slipped repeatedly, is not expected until at least 2015. Signature control and reduction are top MC-X priorities. AFSOC would like to leverage the Air Force's still-undefined Advanced Tactical Transport program. That strategy would have the Air Force develop a stealthy transport, leaving AFSOC having to fund only special operations-unique features.
-- The stealthy AC-X gunship. AFSOC believes that at least one more generation of manned system is required before the mission can be transitioned to unmanned aircraft. AC-X would have a high degree of airframe commonality with MC-X. It would be armed with nonlethal and lethal weapons, including directed-energy weapons. The goal is a system that is more precise and lethal than existing gunships, yet has a lower signature.
Subject: Military aircraft; Equipment acquisition planning
Location: US
Company / organization: Name: Boeing Co; Ticker: BA; DUNS: 00-925-6819
Classification: 5120: Purchasing; 9000: Short article; 9550: Public sector organizations; 8680: Transportation equipment industry; 9190: US
Publication title: Aviation Week & Space Technology
Volume: 150
Issue: 8
Pages: 28
Number of pages: 0
Publication year: 1999
Publication date: February 22, 1999
x16 Scott, William B : Space Ops Threatened By Launch Failures
1999-05
Abstract:
The loss of three military satellites to launch failures since August 1998 could have significant repercussions on future US space-based operations, although near-term capabilities are not in jeopardy, according to the nation's top milspace official. Satellites now in orbit can handle current and projected warfighter demands for communications, navigation, missile warning, weather and intelligence support. The current string of launch failures has raised concerns about the US position as a true space power.
Full text:
The loss of three military satellites to launch failures since August 1998 could have significant repercussions on future U.S. space-based operations, although near-term capabilities are not in jeopardy, according to the nation's top milspace official. In particular, U.S. Space Command's future space control options will be severely constrained until reliable spacelift is assured.
Satellites now in orbit can handle current and projected warfighter demands for communications, navigation, missile warning, weather and intelligence support. However, ``the three satellites lost were designed to carry their respective constellations into the 21st century. We must ensure that those constellations remain robust,'' said Gen. Richard B. Myers, U.S. Space Command's (USSC) commander-in-chief (Cincspace). ``Because these failures have cost us a great deal, both in financial terms and in future mission capability, we are working hard to identify their causes.''
A trio of Titan IVA/B launches failed to place three key spacecraft--a National Reconnaissance Office sigint vehicle, a Defense Support Program missile warning platform and a next-generation Milstar communications satellite--in their proper orbits. As of last week, investigations of the most-recent failed launches were still focusing primarily on upper-stage problems (AW&ST May 10, p. 28).
AIR FORCE SPACE COMMAND AND THE NRO have begun a formal Broad Area Review (BAR) to ``analyze the causes of the recent launch failures; recommend changes in practices, procedures and operations that might prevent such failures, and assure continued access to space for the [Defense Dept.],'' Myers said. Results and recommendations produced by the BAR will be forwarded to the USAF chief-of-staff and secretary.
The current string of launch failures--which also included the loss of several commercial payloads--has raised concerns about the U.S.' position as a true ``space power.'' According to Space Power Theory, a recently released book commissioned by USSC and written by James E. Oberg, having assured access to space is absolutely basic to being a national ``space power.'' Unless the U.S. can reliably put payloads into desired orbits, when it needs to, there is no way it can carry out key missions now assigned to Cincspace--space control and space force application. At the moment, USSC and its service components have limited ``space control'' options, and no acknowledged ``space force application'' capabilities (AW&ST Mar. 29, p. 36).
The U.S. is probably 10-20 years away from having a viable military capability to strike enemy targets in orbit or in the atmosphere with space-based weapons, Myers said. Of course, that capability is based on having a consistently reliable means of on-demand spacelift, which has seemed to elude the U.S. over the long-term.
There are issues other than assured payload launch that need to be addressed, too. Even though the ``space force application'' mission was assigned to USSC by the President, national leaders have been slow to build an associated policy and legal framework. ``There's been no national action on this, other than to assign responsibility for it,'' Myers said. He made it clear, though, that ``there is no national policy to `weaponize' space. So, our focus now is looking at the concepts [of operation] and some of the basic technologies that would enable us to do that someday--if we're tasked by the national command authority to go do that.'' In any event, ``we're a decade or two away'' from having a significant space force application capability, he said.
A draft of a new Pentagon space policy--which is expected to evolve into a national space policy--apparently has little to say about applying military force from and to space, although it will probably address the critical need for reliable launch capabilities.
The first subset of space force application will probably be in the missile defense arena, but other threats are evolving.
``Today, there is relative harmony in space, but there have been instances of jamming. We know that. And we know there are countries developing directed-energy weapons--dazzler-type weapons,'' Myers said. He was not aware of any attacks on satellites with these weapons, ``but we know people are working on the technology.''
EVENTUALLY, THE NEED TO COUNTER AN ATTACK will arise. As the global community launches more spacecraft, several elements of ``space control'' will become increasingly important. That doesn't necessarily mean blasting satellites, though. For the near-term, the U.S. has opted for a package of ``tactical'' space control methods that focus on nonlethal, reversible effects.
Space control also encompasses tasks other than force application, such as space surveillance, a function the U.S. military now does quite well. However, better tools and procedures will be needed to ensure expensive spacecraft do not run into each other and the myriad debris accumulating in some orbits.
``We have to do a better job of space control,'' Myers said, noting that most U.S. resources available for launch and on-orbit ``deconfliction,'' as well as anomaly resolution, are resident in USSC and its Air Force, Navy and Army space components. A new organization or mechanism is needed to provide military-acquired data and analyses to civil and commercial space operators, perhaps under a fee-for-service arrangement, he said. The Aerospace Corp. has taken a first step in this direction, establishing a Space Operations Support Office here to assist commercial satellite operators with anomaly resolution (AW&ST Apr. 26, p. 19).
Another growing need that, technically, falls under space control, is for ``rules-of-the-road. Right now, there are very few,'' Myers said. ``In the future, we have to be pointed toward some sort of rules that everybody abides by.'' There are procedures in place to govern the use of geostationary slots, but none for other orbits. Similarly, space operators tend to honor certain debris-mitigation measures, but their actions are voluntary, not required. Increased space activity by more players will soon dictate all operate to a common set of regulations.
``In my opinion, sooner or later we're going to have to get to that point [on an international basis],'' he said.
Even as USSC grapples with the near-term crisis of launch failures--as well as the uncharted territory of space control and space force application--the Colorado Springs-based headquarters is preparing to assume a new national responsibility in October: computer network defense. The command also is slated to pick up the computer network attack mission in October 2000.
``Of all the unified commands, this looks like the most logical place to put [computer network defense or CND],'' Myers said. ``We think globally and operate globally in a virtual environment--and we are in a supporting role to the other unified commands. But we don't see ourselves `inventing' anything. It's more of an integration function, because most of the pieces and parts are already out there in the services, agencies and other unified commands. We're facilitating the integration.''
USSC will absorb the Defense Dept.'s Joint Task Force on Computer Network Defense, which was activated on Dec. 30, 1998, to counter ``hackers'' and sophisticated attacks against Pentagon computers (AW&ST Feb. 1, p. 64). The unit will remain in the Washington area, where it coordinates Defense activities with other federal agencies.
U.S. Space Command's current information operations (IO) priority is to complete a CND implementation plan and submit it to the joint staff this month, Myers said. ``We understand that we're not the experts in this. We'll rely on a lot of outside help,'' such as contractors and ``gray beards'' who have experience with computer network protection. ``We won't have a final solution by October '99, but we'll continue to develop [the plan]. I'm really pleased with our efforts, so far, but we still have a long way to go.''
MULTIPLE AGENCIES HAVE PORTIONS OF THE U.S.' information operations responsibility. USSC ultimately will focus on computer network defense and attack elements as they apply to national security, Myers noted.
``The command and control arrangements are absolutely critical,'' he stressed. ``We have to be able to pull it all together--not just process data, but manage the operations. Fundamental to taking on computer network defense, then attack, is to [also make sure] we don't take our eye off the space ball. It's imperative we stay focused on the space mission, too,'' which includes fixing current launch problems.
Legal and policy issues also have yet to be resolved in the IO arena, which complicates development of a CND implementation plan. Now, questions are being handled on a case-by-case basis, but that time-consuming approach will have to give way to solid policies governing how network attack, in particular, can be done. ``We do need a more-robust legal staff [at USSC], because we get into some very interesting legal questions when we start talking about attack,'' Myers said.
He acknowledged that his primary concerns about taking on CND and carrying out the various space missions center on resources. Skilled enlisted spacecraft operators are being recruited by commercial space firms, for example. Retaining these and other key personnel dictates better pay, more-reasonable operations tempos and improved quality-of-life measures be quickly implemented by Congress and the Pentagon.
``The top [personnel] priority on my watch is to make sure we get and retain the type of skills we need in the space business,'' Myers declared. Modernization of milspace capabilities through acquisition of the Space-Based Infrared System, the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicles and an upgraded GPS infrastructure, plus organizing correctly for both space and information operation missions, round out Cincspace's key near-term objectives.
``We have an opportunity now to get it right,'' Myers said. ``If there's a book on space [being written], we may be past the preface--maybe in the first chapter--but that's all. And there are 10 or 15 chapters yet to write. We can help write a few lines or paragraphs during the next few years.''
Photograph
Photograph: Gen. Richard B. Myers, commander and chief of U.S. Space Command, is worried about the effects of recent launch failures on future space operations.
Subject: Space surveillance; Satellites; Rocket launches; Problems
Location: US
Classification: 8680: Transportation equipment industry; 9190: US
Publication title: Aviation Week & Space Technology
Volume: 150
Issue: 20
Pages: 25
Number of pages: 0
Publication year: 1999
Publication date: May 17 1999
x17 Fulghum, David A : New U.S. Navy Anechoic Chamber Tests Two Aircraft Together
1999-06
Abstract:
The largest anechoic chamber on the US East Coast - a crucial tool for fine-tuning stealth designs and electronic warfare tactics - just opened at the Naval Air Warfare Center in Patuxent River, Maryland, and already has a full slate of commercial and military customers through the end of the year. The interior of the $49-million, 180 X 180 X 60-ft. chamber is insulated from all outside electronic signals. IT is covered by polyurethane foam pyramids impregnated with carbon that absorbs electronic signals created within the chamber. Officials claim the research can be accomplished at 1/15th the cost of conducting the same test while the aircraft are in flight.
Full text:
The largest anechoic chamber on the U.S. East Coast--a crucial tool for fine-tuning stealth designs and electronic warfare tactics--opened here last week and already has a full slate of commercial and military customers through the end of the year.
The interior of the $49-million, 180 X 180 X 60-ft. chamber is insulated from all outside electronic signals. It is covered by polyurethane foam pyramids impregnated with carbon that absorb electronic signals created within the chamber. By eliminating all exterior noise and interior echoes, researchers can precisely calculate the output and effects of electronic devices. This is important when testing new or modified equipment.
Officials here make the tantalizing claim that research can be accomplished at 1/15th the cost of conducting the same test while the aircraft are in flight. Moreover, no open-air testing can be done without threat of electronic monitoring by outsiders or satellite observation or without outside electronic interference. They also contend that commercial aerospace companies can save overhead by using the Navy's chamber instead of building their own or taking the risk of using a competitor's facility.
BECAUSE TWO AIRCRAFT can be suspended in the facility at once, test engineers can quickly determine how the electronic signals--perhaps the powerful jamming from an EA-6B aircraft--might affect the sensors, computers or flight controls of a strike aircraft, such as the F/A-18. Both were hanging in the chamber for the ribbon cutting.
One aircraft can be moved along a track set diagonally across the chamber's ceiling. The second can be moved from side-to-side of the chamber on another track. Either can be easily rotated on their horizontal axis to create new angles between the aircraft. When required, the crews can mount the aircraft, and the aircraft can then be suspended at heights up to 65 ft. with wheels retracted to simulate flight.
Researchers are also exploring such phenomenon as how the sensors or data streams from two strike aircraft--each launching missiles or standoff weapons--might affect each other, said John Dawson, head of the center's electronic environmental effects (E3) division. They are concerned, for example, that data coming from a missile might be received by the wrong aircraft or that instructions from an aircraft might misdirect another aircraft's missile.
There also are basic questions about unexpected electromagnetic signals interfering with the fly-by-wire systems used by most modern aircraft, particularly airliners with their hundreds of passengers. By using customized GPS-navigation signals and the ability to analyze and duplicate the electronic environment of any place on Earth, such as the approach to some suspect airport, researchers can test how a particular aircraft will respond to a given set of stimuli.
Perhaps the most important military work that may be conducted in the anechoic chamber is the development and fine-tuning of integrated multispectral suites for U.S. warplanes. As the demands increase for precision bombardment, accompanied by no allied casualties and few enemy deaths, researchers are turning to building systems that can blend the picture from several sensors--multiband radars, multifrequency infrared, laser, acoustic, electronic intercept or electro-optical--to produce detailed images and precise identifications at great distances or through camouflage and bad weather.
Virtually all of these conditions likely will be duplicated in the Patuxent River facility. In fact, officials claim they can accurately reproduce the electronic signals put off by an entire allied or adversary fleet at any range. Panels in the walls, roof and floor can be removed to provide ports for the use of a wide range of equipment including lasers, Dawson said.
Other bookings in the new facility, dubbed the Advanced Systems Integration Laboratory, stretch into 2003, he said. The first customer was scheduled to begin using the facility in mid-June. The first project was to have begun in May, but construction officials required the fire extinguisher system be modified at the last minute.
OTHER LARGE ANECHOIC chambers are already located on the West Coast, including the world's largest such facility at Edwards AFB, Calif., that was built for B-1 testing. By locating more than 3,000-mi. closer to Europe, Navy officials hope to parlay Patuxent River's location into a draw for foreign aerospace companies. There is no large anechoic facility in Europe although there is some preliminary planning regarding construction of a chamber in Italy. Meanwhile, discussions are underway about conducting tests here of the Eurofighter 2000 and Canada's CE-144 Challenger electronic warfare training aircraft. Other potential early customers are the competitors for Australia's Wedgetail airborne early warning and surveillance aircraft, slated in 2003, and Britain's Nimrod 2000 in 2001-2. However, first in the queue are U.S. military aircraft including the F/A-18C, F-14, E-2 AWACS and some classified projects.
FROM THE CHAMBER'S CEILING, researchers can simultaneously hang two strike aircraft weighing up to 40 tons each. Much larger aircraft, like the Air Force's B-2 heavy bomber or the Navy's large E-6 Tacamo submarine communications aircraft, would be placed on stands.
Two crucial areas of research the chamber is expected to focus on are electro-magnetic pulses (EMP is generated by lightning storms and atmospheric nuclear explosions.) and bursts of high-power microwaves (HPM could come from radars located close to airports or new types of directed energy weapons).
The anechoic chamber's support facilities include a 34 X 74-ft. operations control center, a trailer mezzanine, two basement test pits and seven outside power distribution units for trailer-mounted equipment. Patuxent River also is developing a secure, wide-band, fiber-optic loop to link all the computer, test, training and laboratory facilities on the base plus satellite and other communications links to anywhere in the world.
Another selling point for the Advanced System Integrated Laboratory is its links to the Air Combat Environment Test and Evaluation Facility. The whole complex has the primary mission of reducing risks and cost for Navy aircraft through the use of simulation. It provides the resources for research, development, test and evaluation, and training. The current investment in the complex is $425 million and the new chamber allows larger aircraft or several smaller aircraft to join in the integrated testing.
In addition, Pax River permits facilities around the world to tie into tests in the new chamber. The integration of anechoic chambers is unique in the Defense Dept. By combining tests in several anechoic chambers, test and fleet pilots can evaluate systems--both real and proposed--and train in combat environments not easily produced in flight.
The exterior walls of the chamber are made of steel plates that provide the electrical continuity to keep out extraneous signals. The 428,000-lb. door to the facility has interlocking fingers to ensure the electronic shield is intact. There is an 8-ft. gap between the outer wall and the inner wall that supports the radar-absorbing material. Catwalks between the two provide space for researchers to mount electronic stimulators and other equipment virtually anywhere in the structure.
UMBILICAL CORDS PROVIDE power, cooling, hydraulics, communications and simulated sensor data to the aircraft. The volume of data provided can be raised or lowered to duplicate greater or smaller distances between the aircraft or the aircraft and their targets. The target data provided is good enough that the aircrews can lock on to their targets and conduct simulated firings. In turn, the ground targets will fight back with communications spoofing, electronic distractions or jamming. The crews can be connected via Pax River's secure fiber-optics link or by satellite communications to other facilities around the world. A crew in the chamber can be involved in a tank battle in Germany or a Marine Corps landing in California.
Even satellites can be mounted in the facility, and the electronic environment of the space shuttle can be duplicated.
Photograph
Photograph: Navy researchers can now isolate two aircraft (F/A-18C foreground and EA-6B rear) from outside signals to see how they electronically affect one another.
ROGER LE JEUNE
Photograph
Photograph: As electronic warfare grows more esoteric and important, aircraft like this EA-6B Prowler must be regularly tested.
ROGER LE JEUNE
Subject: Military aircraft; Product testing; Avionics; Electronic warfare; Facilities
Location: US
Company: Naval Air Warfare Center
Classification: 9190: US; 9550: Public sector organizations; 8680: Transportation equipment industry; 7500: Product planning & development; 8650: Electrical, electronics, instrumentation industries
Publication title: Aviation Week & Space Technology
Volume: 150
Issue: 25
Pages: 56
Number of pages: 0
Publication year: 1999
Publication date: June 21, 1999
x18 Asker, James R : Second Wave
1999-07
Abstract:
Already facing the virtual certainty of F-22 cuts, the Pentagon is apt to face more congressional attacks. Air Force leaders in particular are in for harsh criticism about their stewardship of directed energy weapons.
Full text:
Already facing the virtual certainty of F-22 cuts, the Pentagon is apt to face more congressional attacks. Air Force leaders in particular are in for harsh criticism about their stewardship of directed energy weapons, UAVs and satellite programs. ``They've been extremely disingenuous about the whole [Space-Based Infrared Satellite] effort,'' a House staffer said. ``The Air Force is dragging its feet on UAVs generally and Global Hawk specifically. They're also an obstacle in the development of directed energy weapons. They have two large chemical [space and airborne] laser programs, so they are going out of their way to frustrate progress on solid state lasers, which are far more practical,'' he said. ``Many in Congress feel they need to get a grip on humility.'' A House Appropriations Committee report accused the Pentagon of spending on projects that lawmakers didn't approve--including a C-5 airlifter upgrade, Mil-Star satellite work, MEADS air defense and unspecified classified programs. ``I read the report, but I don't take it at face value,'' a Senate staffer said. Many are still puzzled why Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-Calif.) initially chose to zero the F-22 program. ``It may be a ploy to get Senate appropriators to put more money into defense,'' the Senate staffer said. House staffers say Lewis researched the F-22 for six months before springing his surprise cut. They contend that the F/A-18E/F program escaped reductions only because it is already in production. ``It got away from us, but there's still two [fighter programs] out there,'' a House staffer said. ``Also there is considerably more cost growth being projected [for the F-22], although the Air Force isn't admitting to it yet.''
Subject: Military weapons; Product development; Federal budget; Military aircraft; Defense spending
Location: US
Company: Department of Defense, Air Force-US
Classification: 9190: US; 9000: Short article; 1120: Economic policy & planning; 8680: Transportation equipment industry; 7500: Product planning & development
Publication title: Aviation Week & Space Technology
Volume: 151
Issue: 4
Pages: 27
Number of pages: 0
Publication year: 1999
Publication date: July 26, 1999
x19 Fulghum, David A : LockMart Expands JSF Range, Payload
1999-11
Abstract:
Lockheed Martin expects its short takeoff and vertical landing version of the Joint Strike Fighter to have two unique advantages in the competition for a next-generation, ground-attack aircraft - an extra 100 mile radius in range, and a huge potential supply of electrical power to run sensor payloads or a laser weapon.
Full text:
Lockheed Martin expects its short takeoff and vertical landing version of the Joint Strike Fighter to have two unique advantages in the competition for a next-generation, ground-attack aircraft--an extra 100-mi. radius in range, and a huge potential supply of electrical power to run sensor payloads or a laser weapon.
The extra range will come from a Pratt & Whitney F119-derivative engine that operates more efficiently in conventional flight than engine designs specialized for STOVL operations, said Lockheed Martin engineers. They contend that the propulsion package of a lift fan driven by a shaft from the main engine permits the system to operate at its most efficient settings in ``up and away flight.''
By comparison, a direct thrust arrangement like that used for the AV-8 Harrier requires the engine to be sized to operate most efficiently during vertical flight and the transition to and from horizontal flight. To provide enough direct thrust to land vertically, an engine needs a bigger core and a larger fan, a Lockheed Martin official said. Since the Boeing JSF design relies on direct thrust to generate all the aircraft's lift, it has to be sized for that small part of the flight envelope, he said. The extra size, weight and reduced conventional flight efficiency come at the cost of up to a 20% penalty in range due to increased fuel consumption. Translated to a hypothetical operational mission by a JSF, that could mean up to a 100-mi. smaller radius in range.
Lockheed Martin tests at NASA's Ames Research Center verified that sufficient low-pressure, turbine horsepower could be extracted to propel a shaft-driven lift fan while concurrently operating the engine low pressure rotor at high power conditions. In fact, Lockheed Martin designers selected the shaft-driven lift fan for the very reason that STOVL performance can be decoupled from cruise performance. The design has the added advantage that exhaust temperatures and pressures are far less and therefore won't damage taxiways, roads or parking lots that might have to be the bases for forward operations in wartime. Critics say the heat from Boeing's engine is better distributed and not concentrated at the tail like Lockheed Martin's design.
``The critical parameter is thrust specific fuel consumption plotted against the engine's power setting,'' the Lockheed Martin official said. He admitted that the lift fan adds weight to the propulsion system, but he said the penalty ``still allows a thrust-to-weight ratio of more than 3-1.'' Company engineers claim the JSF119-611 engine with lift fan produces 60% greater thrust than using the same engine operated in the direct lift mode. Moreover, the official said, the engine design is advanced enough that Lockheed Martin plans to use it as a prototype during the JSF demonstration phase in order to ready it for production sooner.
THE SECOND ADVANTAGE claimed by Lockheed Martin for its JSF design is the potential for extra electrical power production that could come from harnessing the energy available from the shaft that links the main engine and lift fan. The shaft is engaged to turn the lift fan during vertical and transitional flight, but during most of the mission a clutch disengages the shaft that nonetheless continues to turn at the same speed as the main engine fan. By using the turning shaft to run electrical generators, Lockheed Martin analyses estimate that up to 8,000 kVA could be provided to power additional avionics or directed energy weapons such as lasers. Boeing designers are critical, saying that converting the engine shaft's rotation to electricity would be complex and expensive.
Lockheed Martin program officials earlier this year said that the option of having more available power would allow them to offer at least three early derivatives of the basic JSF design. ``There are ongoing advanced design studies,'' confirmed an official. First in line would be an Air Force-specific EF-111 radar and communications jamming replacement. Second would be an electronic intelligence gathering variant that could plot the type and location of enemy radar, data and communication signals. A third variant could be a JSF equipped with a laser weapon. Critics contend that it will be a long time before lasers are efficient enough that one sized for a JSF would be lethal enough to destroy an aircraft or missile.
Subject: Military aircraft; Advantages; Design
Location: United States, US
Company / organization: Name: Lockheed Martin Corp; Ticker: LMT; NAICS: 334290, 212319, 336411, 336413, 336414
Classification: 9190: United States; 8680: Transportation equipment industry; 9000: Short article
Publication title: Aviation Week & Space Technology
Volume: 151
Issue: 19
Pages: 56-57
Number of pages: 0
Publication year: 1999
Publication date: November 8, 1999
x20 William J. McCarthy : Directed Energy and Fleet Defense: Implications for Naval Warfare
2000
Directed Energy and Fleet Defense: Implications for Naval Warfare
By William J. McCarthy, Captain, USN, May 2000
Occasional Paper No. 10, Center for Strategy and Technology, Air War College, Air University, Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama
x21 Holdstock, Douglas; Waterston, Lis : Nuclear weapons, a continuing threat to health
2000-04
The Lancet; Apr 29, 2000; 355, 9214; ProQuest Science Journals pg. 1544
x22 Smith, Bruce a; Wall, Robert : Thel Laser Kills Short-Range Missile
2000-06
Abstract:
Destruction of a rocket in-flight by a high-energy laser system has demonstrated that an operational-type directed energy weapon can defeat a short-range ballistic rocket attack, according to program officials.
Full text:
Destruction of a rocket in flight by a high-energy laser system has demonstrated that an operational-type directed energy weapon can defeat a short-range ballistic rocket attack, according to program officials.
The Katyusha rocket was destroyed on June 6 at White Sands Missile Range, N.M., when the U.S. Army's Tactical High Energy Laser/Advanced Concept Technology Demonstrator (Thel/Actd) detonated the vehicle's high-explosive warhead.
THE INTERCEPT was the first kill of a Katyusha rocket by a deployable-type high-energy laser weapon, and the first attempt by the Thel system to destroy a rocket, according to program officials.
The test could serve as a first step in bolstering air defense against attacks by rockets such as the Katyusha, with Mach 3 velocity and a flight time of only 15-40 sec.
The test could also boost interest in development of laser weapon systems which are smaller and more mobile than Thel, which includes several transportable, cargo container-sized structures mounted on concrete pads.
In the near-term, the successful demonstration will lead to more complex and aggressive testing of the Thel system, officials said.
The rocket was fired on a 15-km. trajectory and destroyed by Thel at a range of a few kilometers. ``It was the very first time we tried to put the high [laser] power on a Katyusha for long-enough duration to kill it, and we blew it up,'' said Richard Bradshaw, directed energy program manager for the Army Space and Missile Defense Command.
How long the laser has to be focused on the Katyusha to explode it is classified, but Bradshaw said the engagement took place ``within the tactical timelines we need to meet our requirements.''
The Thel system was developed by a TRW-led team of U.S. and Israeli contractors for the U.S. Army and the Israel Ministry of Defense. The design of the deuterium fluoride chemical laser weapon was driven in part by Israel's requirements for an air defense system to protect communities located along the country's northern border from terrorist rocket attacks. The Katyusha rocket for the test was supplied by the Israeli government.
The rocket was launched at 3:48 p.m. EDT in desert terrain near the Army's High Energy Laser Systems Test Facility. The launcher was located 10-15 km. south of the position of the Thel system.
The integrated fire control radar acquired the incoming Katyusha shortly after launch, determined the trajectory and automatically fed data to the command and control system. Command and control identified the target and directed the optical pointer/tracker subsystem to search with sensors mounted on the beam director. A forward looking infrared (Flir) system is used for coarse-tracking.
THE SYSTEM THEN TRANSITIONED to a fine-tracking mode using a lower-power level solid state laser to illuminate the target. The system uses full aperture of the beam director for precision tracking on the vehicle's warhead, ultimately sending the laser beam out through the pointer-tracker. The warhead of the 10-ft. long rocket was heated by the laser beam and detonated.
Tom Romesser, TRW vice president and deputy general manager of laser programs, said the Katyusha's solid rocket motor provides 2-3 sec. of thrust enabling the vehicle to typically achieve an initial launch velocity of about a kilometer per second.
PROGRAM OFFICIALS have aimed at concentrating the energy of the laser beam on the warhead of the rocket. ``The Katyushas are a 122-mm.-dia. rocket,'' Romesser said. ``Our objective is to focus our energy so that it impacts the rocket and we deposit all of our energy on the rocket.''
The next step in the program is preparing for a multiple rocket shoot-down in about 6-8 weeks. Between now and then, the Army and TRW will analyze data from about 80 sensors that observed last week's test.
Bradshaw said some configuration changes are possible, but that no obvious adjustments are required as a result of last week's test. Initially, the Army plans to launch multiple rockets on a similar trajectory, which should ease the ability to detect and engage the targets.
Eventually, Thel was supposed to be deployed to Israel to protect the country's northern border against Hezbollah Katyusha attacks from southern Lebanon. But there is some discussion within the Pentagon about whether that move will take place. The Pentagon's director for research and development, Hans Mark, is interested in keeping the system in the U.S. for testing. In the meantime, Israel and the U.S. are working on an agreement to jointly develop a smaller, mobile, more tactically useful version of the laser-system.
The successful intercept has been slow in coming. The Army and Israel signed an agreement in 1996 to develop the system as a quick response capability. However, along the way the development slowed several times because of technical difficulties.
Bradshaw acknowledged that integrating the different Thel components at times took longer than first expected. However, he added, the development could have been even slower if TRW hadn't given its engineers at lower levels a lot of authority to explore problems and come up with fixes.
Army officials also are eager to point out that the Thel success has broader implications for directed energy weapons. ``This compelling demonstration of Thel's defensive capability proves that directed energy weapon systems have the potential to play a significant role in defending U.S. national security interests worldwide.''
Photograph
Photograph: Ten-ft.-long Katyusha ballistic rocket was destroyed at White Sands Missile Range when Thel high-energy laser beam detonated the high-explosive warhead.
Subject: Lasers; Missiles; Research & development; R & D; National security
Location: United States, US
Classification: 8680: Transportation equipment industry; 9190: United States; 5400: Research & development; 9000: Short article
Publication title: Aviation Week & Space Technology
Volume: 152
Issue: 24
Pages: 33
Number of pages: 0
Publication year: 2000
Publication date: June 12, 2000
x23 Fulghum, David a : STOVL Program Slows JSF
2000-06
The propulsion system of Lockheed Martin's vertical landing variant of the Joint Strike Fighter is suffering from a new problem, this time an overheating bearing where power from the engine is transferred to the lift fan.
The current problem involves the clutch and gearbox that connects the driveshaft from the engine to the vertical lift fan, according to senior Lockheed Martin officials. The clutch/gearbox system allows the driveshaft to engage for takeoff and vertical flight and then disengage for conventional forward flight. Planners hope they can eventually harness power from the shaft to run other devices such as lasers and other directed energy weapons.
But right now, due to a string of teething problems, program officials are having trouble conducting the necessary number of test engagements and disengagements to prove the system's ruggedness. While hundreds of clutch engagements were conducted in ground test, they've not been duplicated in large numbers in the test rig where the total system is involved.
``We know the clutch can take the power and the force,'' said Frank Cappuccio, Lockheed Martin vice president and JSF program manager. ``What we're having problems with is getting enough total system engagements while the engine is driving the shaft to prove the system is robust.''
THE FIRST ASTOVL DELAY came after the failure of a chipped gear halted testing for a month. Then the introduction of a different engine revealed a vibration in the low-power turbine, so the program was again delayed.
``Right now, there is a bearing that for some reason is running hot,'' Cappuccio said. ``We're trying to understand it. We're ready for CTOL [conventional takeoff aircraft] testing, but with ASTOVL we're still fighting this bearing. The problem is I don't have enough test data for Pratt & Whitney to finish their software associated with the flight controls. And I don't have enough software to finish my STOVL control laws.'' Even with the delays, he predicted the ASTOVL aircraft would fly soon after the Christmas holidays.
The ASTOVL propulsion system has accumulated about 200 hr. of hover testing. There also have been about 100 engagements of the vertical lift fan in the laboratory. But Lockheed Martin has only completed about 20 full-up engagements--out of a required 75-100--of the total system in the Pratt & Whitney test rig.
``The software for ASTOVL is done,'' Cappuccio said. ``What I need to do is regression testing on [it]. Will the software work in all the crazy modes? Pratt & Whitney needs verification.''
Lockheed Martin officials had anticipated a standing-wave-vibration problem where the drive shaft comes out of the engine, but the anomaly never materialized. Instead, difficulties cropped up at the opposite end of the drive shaft where a bearing in a beveled gear transfers power from the shaft to the lift fan. If this were a true X-plane program, testing would go ahead, he said. But since it's really the start of a production program, additional safety issues come into play.
``The worst case scenario is that you have to do a limited hover test,'' Cappuccio said. ``This is the concept stage. You want to understand the phenomenology before you commit the big money,'' an estimated $16-18 billion for engineering and manufacturing development.
Overall, Lockheed Martin officials remain optimistic about their lift-fan-powered ASTOVL system. Jet-powered ASTOVL designs have traditionally had problems because the ingestion of the hot air that surrounds the aircraft during landing reduces thrust. Lockheed Martin circumvented the problem by using a shaft-driven lift fan that provides 57% of the JSF's lift from cool air. Cool air is a relative term, however. Cool air is 200-250F compared with 350F from direct thrust engines. However, it is enough to make the ``environment of the deck significantly better'' for flight deck personnel on aircraft carriers and to cause less damage to tarmac surfaces, Cappuccio said. Boeing officials said their JSF ASTOVL direct thrust design is no hotter than exhaust from the AV-8 Harrier currently in use with the Marine Corps.
A BIGGER PROBLEM FOR BOTH Lockheed Martin and competitor Boeing is a congressional move to cut JSF funding to compensate for anticipated delays and some Pentagon indecision on how to conduct the JSF acquisition.
``I don't see Congress right now willing to abandon `winner take all','' Cappuccio said. ``We'd like to know [how to bid the EMD contract] before the end of the month.'' The Pentagon announced late last week that it would retain the winner-take-all acquisition strategy (see following story).
The real threat would come from a congressionally mandated or budgetary delay because it would force the competing companies to begin laying off engineers from the design teams after they complete flying tests in March 2001. The alternative is for the company to absorb the cost, an estimated $10 million per month, for 500 engineers who would otherwise be transferred, put on new projects or laid off.
``We anticipate the government not making a down select until June,'' Cappuccio said. ``Then we would not have authorization to proceed until October of next year--the beginning of fiscal year 2002.'' The presidential election in 2000 and inauguration of the new Administration in 2001 makes additional delay even more likely.
``I have to disband the design team depending on how much money is available,'' he said. So far, projected funding is down by $460 million for the year. ``That's why the [JSF program] model is breaking down. Then I have to reconstitute my team later on. That's hard to do.''
Publication title: Aviation Week & Space Technology
Volume: 152
Issue: 26
Pages: 44
Number of pages: 0
Publication year: 2000
Publication date: June 26, 2000
x24 Fulghum, David a : USAF Chief Signals Key Funding Priorities
2000-07
Abstract:
The US Air Force will ask for increased funding for additional intelligence-gathering resources, airlifters and satellites but not new bombers. Chief of Staff Gen. Mike Ryan said that high on the immediate list of priorities is to get Congress to restore funding for the Discoverer II satellite, a radar-carrying constellation of spacecraft that can track moving targets on the ground. Congress has zeroed funding for the system.
Full text:
The U.S. Air Force will ask for increased funding for additional intelligence-gathering resources, airlifters and satellites but not new bombers.
Chief of Staff Gen. Mike Ryan said that high on the immediate list of priorities is to get Congress to restore funding for the Discoverer II satellite, a radar-carrying constellation of spacecraft that can track moving targets on the ground. Congress has zeroed funding for the system.
``The way to handle a crisis is to first know that it's going on and then to characterize it in a way to put the appropriate force forward,'' Ryan said. The Air Force already has the E-8 Joint-STARS aircraft to find moving targets, but they are few in number. But more pervasive, strategic coverage is critical to supplement the airborne force, he said.
``Now we want to put that same capability in space,'' Ryan said. ``That's why we're going after Discoverer II. You could get intermittent strategic coverage that could alert long-dwell aircraft and UAVs to look at specific targets. We will argue strenuously that we need to move forward on Discoverer II. [Despite attempts to kill congressional funding,] the game isn't over yet,'' he said.
While weaponization of space is still decades off, he said, ``there is some inevitability that it will occur if just to protect extensive communications and navigation systems already there.
``I don't see that in the next 25 years that we'll break from Earth-centric space requirements,'' Ryan said. ``Focus will stay within the aerospace domain . . . that will help us do weather, reconnaissance, intelligence, navigation, etc. But I think there will be attacks--challenges to our space capability. We will have to protect our assets in space because we're becoming much more dependent on them. So I see defense as a primary emphasis.''
Offensive weapons would be a separate category requiring a substantial change in policy or some breakthrough in technology before the U.S. would consider using space as a platform for offensive operations.
``[However,] we need to be able to operate with offensive capabilities, one of which is space-based laser,'' Ryan said. ``We're working this very hard on the ABL [airborne laser], which has a lot of technology with direct transfer to space-based laser.''
While Ryan is an advocate for Air Force space operations, there is some support for a plan to separate air and space operations because the service can't afford to pay for both. For example, the Air Force isn't the heaviest user of some space capabilities like GPS navigation and communications, yet it pays 90% of the cost. By splitting off space, the financial burden on the Air Force would be reduced. Nevertheless, Ryan shuns the idea.
``We think it's critical to integrate what happens in space with what happens in the air and on the ground,'' he said. For example, during the Kosovo air campaign, B-2 missions required data from space from the start of planning through guidance of the bomb as it fell to its target to post-raid analysis. ``To say that we ought to pull apart the integration of those capabilities . . . and separate the vertical medium because it is a place and not a mission'' is a flawed concept, he said.
Ryan also is worried about new, congressionally imposed spending priorities like national missile defense that would push aside current needs like buying additional airlifters.
``We all agree that the missile defense is feasible . . . but the system ought to be above and beyond what we currently have [to spend]. We're [already] underfunded. Last year we needed $3.5 billion [extra] just to turn around readiness. I worried about the level of defense funding in general.
Ryan said the Air Force is reconciling its new 10-air-expeditionary-force (AEF) concept with its shrinking airlift fleet. Service planners say an AEF can be deployed in 48 hr., and five AEFs can be fielded in 15 days. Once in the theater, an AEF could find and strike 200 targets per day across a battlefield about half the size of Texas. Five would increase the strike potential to 1,000 targets. ``We could do that today,'' Ryan said. But success would rely on having two bases available for each AEF, some of which would have to be prepared for operations and stockpiled munitions and spares in advance.
However, not all the kinks have been worked out of the plan. Such rapid response would depend on adequate lift, which might also be claimed by other services. ``It would not take all the available airlift [to deploy the AEFs], but it would be a substantial part of it,'' he said.
Planning for future airlift is still in flux. One long-awaited document is a newest version of a mobility requirement study (MRS-05) being conducted by U.S. Transportation Command.
``MRS-05 will probably come out this summer or fall,'' Ryan said. ``I don't think it's going to call for less airlift. [The Air Force and Joint Chiefs of Staff] are considering how much higher we need to go. You can almost use the formula that every 100,000-ton-miles-per-day increase [that the Air Force is required to move] equals one C-17 equivalent. We will never have enough airlift to conduct two simultaneous major regional conflicts. We can't afford to go there. We have a one theater war force.''
While Ryan is calling for new satellites and airlifters, he is asking that new bomber plans be put on hold until 2020-25. In particular, he rejects the premise of a recent study that caught the attention of Congress that says the Air Force needs a new bomber by 2015.
AIR FORCE ANALYSTS can see the solutions to technology breakthroughs needed for the necessary quantum leap in capability that would justify a new bomber or ``future attack aircraft.''
``The new technologies will have to do with the signature of the aircraft-infrared, radar and visual,'' Ryan said. ``We don't know if the aircraft is orbital or suborbital. It may not be manned. It could have [directed] energy weapons on it.''
Instead of developing a new bomber, for the next 10-15 years, the Air Force needs to spend its money on improving the current force with new avionics, communications and command and control systems, he said. Also needed are more-accurate, long-range cruise missiles and improved accuracy, situational awareness and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities. The B-2's replacement needs to fly during the day, operate autonomously and perhaps fly at hypersonic speeds.
Meanwhile, the Air Force is looking at ways to better use its small force of stealthy B-2s. Planners want to deploy the aircraft near any potential battlefield in order to generate more sorties than if they were operated from the U.S.
``We're looking at places around the world where we can bed the aircraft down and making sure we have the infrastructure there--[such as] Guam, Fairford [Britain], Diego Garcia [Indian Ocean],'' Ryan said. ``We're buying enough--about 12 [climate-controlled B-2 hangars where the stealth coating can be repaired]--to give us an expeditionary capability as well as pre-positioning some of them.'' The portable B-2 hangar is in operational test and evaluation now and the first production version will be delivered next year.
Photograph
Photograph: USAF budgeteers expect to pay for the F-22 themselves, but they want the other services to kick in on space systems such as GPS navigation and satellite communications.
Subject: Defense spending; Federal funding; Intelligence gathering; Space surveillance; Satellites; Radar
Location: United States, US
Company / organization: Name: Air Force-US; NAICS: 928110; SIC: 9700
Classification: 1120: Economic policy & planning; 9550: Public sector; 8680: Transportation equipment industry; 9190: United States
Publication title: Aviation Week & Space Technology
Volume: 153
Issue: 1
Pages: 56-58
Number of pages: 0
Publication year: 2000
Publication date: July 3, 2000
x25 Phillips, Edward H; Fulghum, David a : JSF Studied As Potential Jamming, Laser Platform
2000-07
Abstract:
Lockheed Martin is studying special derivatives of its Joint Strike Fighter candidate for special mission applications that center on electronic attack and the use of directive-energy weapons. These initiatives are drawing serious interest from the U.S. Defense Department and the UK's Ministry of Defense, according to Lockheed Martin officials. A key tactical advantage of a joint strike fighter configured for electronic attack would be its ability to accompany a strike force, jamming enemy radars and communications.
Full text:
Lockheed Martin is studying special derivatives of its Joint Strike Fighter candidate for special mission applications that center on electronic attack and the use of directed-energy weapons.
These initiatives are drawing serious interest from the U.S. Defense Dept. and the U.K.'s Ministry of Defense, according to Lockheed Martin officials. If the company's JSF team wins the engineering and manufacturing development contract scheduled to be awarded in 2001, these programs would accelerate to meet JSF deployment tentatively set for 2008. Northrop Grumman and BAE Systems are also members of the team.
A key tactical advantage of a JSF configured for electronic attack would be its ability to accompany a strike force, jamming enemy radars and communications as the flight sweeps through an area at high speed and at high or low altitudes, said Harold W. Blot. He is vice president and deputy program manager for Lockheed Martin's JSF initiative. The JSF's electronic warfare suite would be able to locate, identify, prioritize and jam a variety of ground-based electronic threats, according to Blot.
David L. Jeffreys, acting manager of growth and derivatives for the company's JSF program, said the airplane is ``a natural fit'' for the electronic attack mission because of its long range, reduced radar signature, and the capability to produce a significant amount of electrical energy to power an array of specialized equipment. These include an airborne laser or packages designed to jam enemy radars and communications.
The 181-cu.-ft. cavity used to house the lift fan for the short takeoff and vertical landing (STOVL) version could accommodate electronics, reconnaissance cameras or fuel. For example, an additional 3,800 lb. of fuel could be carried in the compartment that would increase the airplane's combat radius of 700 naut. mi. by another 190 naut. mi., Jeffreys said.
THE INPUT SHAFT from the Pratt & Whitney engine used to propel the JSF and operate the lift fan could be modified to drive a generator producing megawatts of energy to power a directed-energy weapon, he said. Lockheed Martin has consulted with various manufacturers of lasers to determine if the 50-in.-dia. cavity and 35,000 shp. available from the engine would be adequate to operate a laser. The answer was ``yes, but only if the airplane flies at altitudes above 50,000 ft. and engaged air-to-air or air-to-space targets,'' the analysts said. Operating a laser at lower altitudes would significantly weaken the weapon's energy, requiring the aircraft to get too close to its target to achieve destruction. Such missions probably would be assigned to cruise missiles carrying high-powered microwave weapons, Blot said.
Potential targets for an airborne laser include aircraft, cruise missiles, artillery rockets and possibly spacecraft. Disabling communications or surveillance satellites in low-Earth orbit, however, would require changes to existing international treaties. ``Installing a laser on a tactical airplane is very challenging, especially from a systems integration standpoint, but our studies indicate that it can be done,'' Jeffreys said. Although engineers still have many details to work out for a laser-equipped JSF, ``we have received substantial interest from the customer community'' for such an aircraft, he said.
In addition, the U.S. Marine Corps is ``very interested in JSF as an electronic attack platform'' because STOVL versions for the Marines could replace the AV-8B Harrier II, EA-6B Prowler and F/A-18 Hornet with one airplane, said Don A. Beaufait, manager of Marine Corps JSF business development for Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Co. The U.S. Air Force views a modified version of the conventional takeoff and landing version (CTOL) JSF as a way to regain jamming capability lost with retirement of the EF-111 Raven.
The JSF's stealth characteristics, coupled with its Advanced Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) radar/antenna technologies and internal jamming packages, would make the airplane an effective electronic attack platform, according to Beaufait. Unlike the Prowler, it could penetrate much closer to the target, jamming it more effectively. The JSF's software would analyze the acquisition cycle of an antiaircraft radar and jam it occasionally to force the target-acquisition cycle to start again.
Standoff was a factor in the loss of an F-117A near Belgrade during the Kosovo campaign when an EA-6B was forced to remain nearly 100 mi. away to avoid antiaircraft missiles. As a result, enemy radar was not jammed effectively. Although the JSF's AESA will have limited jamming capability against another aircraft's radar and communications systems, an additional antenna could be mounted in a conformal radome and emit powerful, narrow beams that would be difficult to detect, Jeffreys said. The JSF's ASEA comprises several hundred transmitter/receiver elements that can each be simultaneously assigned a different task such as communications, jamming or target search.
The company also is studying a two-seat JSF version. Mission radius would be reduced by 75 mi. Although modifying the Air Force CTOL and Navy CV versions to accept a second cockpit would not be difficult, stretching the STOVL airplane would present more problems because of the lift fan bay. Although analysis by Lockheed Martin JSF team member BAE Systems indicates a two-seat STOVL aircraft is feasible, ``there are important considerations, including aerodynamics and weight and balance issues,'' Beaufait said.
Weapons bays for Air Force and Navy aircraft feature 175 cu. ft. that could accept mission pallets such as electronics or reconnaissance packages. Lockheed Martin also is designing a conformal, centerline-mounted pod for the Marine Corps' JSF to house the Boeing Advanced 27-mm. Aircraft Cannon. The installation would increase drag slightly compared with the standard JSF.
Another study centers on using optional, interchangeable weapons bay doors to allow the JSF to carry a wide array of bombs and other weapons. Larger doors would allow carriage of 2,000-lb.-class weapons and would be designed to operate at supersonic speeds, Jeffreys said. Engineers also are studying the use of smaller weapons such as 100-250-lb. bombs, and multimode, radar-killing missiles that are more effective than existing Harm weapons.
Illustration
Illustration: Graph: Two-Seat JSF Versions
Straightforward Adaptation for Two-Seat CTOL and CV Versions
-- Second Seat Occupies Part of Lift Fan Bay
-- Additional Fuel/Avionics Volume Still Available
Side-Looking EA Apertures Could Be Mounted Internally,
Carried in Weapons Bay Packages or in Centerline Pod
Subject: Military aircraft; Research & development; R & D; Electronic warfare; Radar systems
Location: United States, US
Company / organization: Name: Lockheed Martin Corp; Ticker: LMT; NAICS: 334290, 212319, 336411, 336413, 336414
Classification: 8680: Transportation equipment industry; 9190: United States; 5400: Research & development
Publication title: Aviation Week & Space Technology
Volume: 153
Issue: 2
Pages: 33-34
Number of pages: 0
Publication year: 2000
Publication date: July 10, 2000
x26 Fulghum, David a : Clutch Failure Disrupts LockMart JSF Lift Fan Tests
2000-07
Abstract:
The lift fan for the vertical-landing version of Lockheed Martin's Joint Strike Fighter has suffered another breakdown, but company officials say they were aware of a weakness in the system and had a redesigned part ready for replacement.
Full text:
The lift fan for the vertical-landing version of Lockheed Martin's Joint Strike Fighter has suffered another breakdown, but company officials say they were aware of a weakness in the system and had a redesigned part ready for replacement.
Despite industry rumors of pressures on Lockheed Martin to redesign the systems, program officials resumed testing on the lift fan design on July 18 with only about 1 hr. of formal testing lost to the incident. Other recent lift fan problems have involved a misalignment in the gearbox and an overheating bearing.
The clutch system locking mechanism failed on July 12 after the system had completed 24 dynamic clutch engagements, said Harold W. Blot, vice president and deputy program manager for Lockheed Martin's JSF program. During the test, the Pratt & Whitney JSF119-611 engine, which drives the lift fan through a shaft and clutch assembly, was operating at speeds required for conversion of the aircraft from horizontal to vertical flight. The thrust needed for conversion is pegged at 82% of rated engine power. At the time of clutch failure, the engine was running at 87% power or 110% of what is needed for conversion.
LOCKHEED MARTIN OFFICIALS said that a redesigned part has already been shipped to the West Palm Beach, Fla., facility. The lift fan is a product of Rolls-Royce, which provided both the failed and redesigned parts. Lockheed Martin's goal is 160-plus engagements before the government clears the system for the start of flight testing, scheduled for March 2001. The government will require about half that number of clutch engagements during the flight tests, Blot said.
The lift fan is faulted by critics for being too complicated. But Lockheed Martin officials point to a number of benefits from the system. The lift fan allows the main engine to be tuned for conventional flight. It also circulates cooler air which increases lift, improves the heat environment for ground crews and doesn't damage runway and taxiway surfaces. Moreover, the shaft that transfers power from the main engine to the lift fan can be used to power other devices, such as electronic warfare equipment and directed energy weapons--primarily lasers--for air-to-air and air-to-ground attacks.
During tests last August, researchers proved they could harness and transfer the horsepower, said Blot. But they also realized the positioning of the clutch pack was not adequate. Once in operation, it produced vibration, took too much time to engage and the engagements were sometimes uneven.
AS A RESULT, THE COMPANY CHANGED the clutch software control mechanism design ``to a closed loop, where we physically position it, instead of just putting a force against it,'' Blot said. The installed feedback loop positions the clutch more accurately and with a predictable amount of force.
In testing the new system, engineers determined that there was an arm on the outside of the clutch that was attached to a potentiometer that could bind when the clutch was engaged at its maximum extension, he said. At full extension, the arm would not be strong enough, so they had redesigned it. However, the redesigned piece was not in this test clutch unit. Everything worked, but after 24 clutch engagements, the part hit the critical circumstance, and it snapped, ending the test.
``We knew what the problem was,'' Blot said. ``We already had the [replacement] part in hand. We were just trying to get the maximum amount of data, hoping it wouldn't happen to us.'' The test delays resulted because the broken item ``is a tiny little part, but it was right in the middle of things so we had to disassemble it, pull the clutch back, replace it, put it back together [and] check the alignment.''
Subject: Product design; Problems; Military aircraft
Location: United States, US
Company / organization: Name: Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Co; NAICS: 334511
Classification: 8680: Transportation equipment industry; 7500: Product planning & development; 9000: Short article; 9190: United States
Publication title: Aviation Week & Space Technology
Volume: 153
Issue: 4
Pages: 66
Number of pages: 0
Publication year: 2000
Publication date: July 24, 2000
x27 Fulghum, David a : New Weapons, Tactics Explored for JSF
2000-08
Taking advantage of weapons bay locations on its Joint Strike Fighter design, Boeing engineers have developed a new way to foil enemy antiaircraft.
The JSF has two large, triangular weapons bays that open to the side rather than straight down, a design innovation that permits both tactical sleight-of-hand and growth room to carry larger weapons or specialized equipment for additional combat roles. (The Boeing X-32A demonstrator is scheduled to make its first flight on Aug. 15. It was delayed to fix software problems prior to high-speed taxi tests.)
Opening a weapons bay on a stealthy aircraft has always posed a problem because its radar reflectivity blossoms during the seconds the doors are open, exposing the flat-sided interior and offering enemy antiaircraft gunners a target. Boeing's design finesses the problem by letting pilots offer one side of the aircraft, with stealth surfaces intact, to the enemy radar. Meanwhile, the pilot opens the bay doors on the opposite side to fire or drop a weapon that then crosses over the aircraft's path to strike a target or threat radar.
Moreover, Boeing officials said their weapons bays offer growth potential for a wide range of oversized weapons. The likely candidates are improved, heavier bombs for penetrating underground or hardened bunkers, command-and-control sites and communications nodes. Destroying such targets will be critical in the first days of any air campaign when antiaircraft defenses may still be intact and stealth aircraft must maintain a small signature by carrying all weapons internally.
ANOTHER CRITICAL need for the JSF, F-22 and F-117 stealth fighters is an anti-radar missile that is smaller and more sophisticated than the current High-speed Anti-Radiation Missile (Harm). Aerospace industry and Air Force officials say Raytheon has such a weapon under development in a classified program. The Air Force also wants a longer-range air-to-air missile that matches the increased range (90-125 naut. mi.) of the new active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar being installed on several types of fighter aircraft.
Both Boeing and Lockheed Martin JSF designs will have AESA radar. These arrays have considerably more than 1,000 transmitter/receiver elements (about 2,000 on an F-22 radar), which also can be used to jam enemy radar.
Jamming tactics being developed by the Pentagon use a buddy system in which one or two JSFs electronically disrupt enemy radar from above and behind an attacking pair of strike aircraft. Such tactics were developed because JSF's radar antenna array has only a limited field of view to the front. The jamming aircraft would have to be positioned to keep any threatening radar in sight for the duration of his partner's attack. Or two jamming aircraft could establish a racetrack orbit. The bombing and jamming aircraft would then reverse roles to continue the attack.
At the other end of the weapons scale, Boeing officials said they are making provisions for carrying larger numbers of 250-lb. or smaller weapons that are being developed by the Air Force. Of primary focus are the small smart bomb (SSB) and small smart bomb extended-range (SSB-ER) programs, they said.
The bays could be extended downward or to the side by adding new, bulged weapons-bay doors. This option is not possible in a weapons bay that opens downward because of the clearance needed for ordnance specialists operating loading equipment. Extension of the bay to the front of the Boeing design is unlikely unless the services want to sacrifice the cannon. Another option is to widen the aircraft's thickness slightly. Minor changes in the weapons bay are not expected to affect the aircraft's signature significantly.
ENLARGED WEAPONS bays would also answer the challenge from Lockheed Martin's design, which has a large (51-in.-dia.) space for weapons and specialized equipment when the lift fan needed for vertical flight is removed. Boeing officials have suggested the space could be used for directed-energy weapons, such as combat lasers, or electronic warfare devices such as jammers, both of which would be powered by a shaft transferring power from the main engine.
Boeing's design uses direct thrust and doesn't employ a lift fan. However, company officials say they have more than 100 cubic ft. of growth space distributed evenly around the aircraft and the weapons bays offer another, large area for electronic warfare or other specialized equipment. However, Boeing has not spent a great deal of effort studying derivatives yet, they said.
Boeing officials here say the vertical landing X-32B JSF demonstrator is slated to fly before the end of the year. Boeing's short takeoff and vertical landing flight tests are to be completed by March, about the time Lockheed Martin expects to start flying its STOVL aircraft.
To quash criticism that the direct lift design would be less efficient in top-end performance than a conventional aircraft, Boeing officials say test data show the penalty is less than 5%.
Photograph
Photograph: Boeing officials are examining ways to enlarge side-mounted weapons bays to carry more and larger weapons including bunker-buster, cruise and antiradar missiles.
Publication title: Aviation Week & Space Technology
Volume: 153
Issue: 6
Pages: 44
Number of pages: 0
Publication year: 2000
Publication date: August 7, 2000
x28 Asker, James R : . . . And More Zappers
2000-08
Russia might develop a new laser weapon too, intelligence officials warn in a national intelligence estimate on directed-energy weapons. ``It could be a very significant threat if this is a program they pursue,'' says Ken Knight, who watches global trends at the Defense Intelligence Agency. Russia still has a large directed-energy weapons program, but it is unclear whether Moscow has the funds or the interest to pursue the technology. Additional countries are believed to be actively pursuing laser weapons. China is seen as undertaking substantial directed-energy research and development efforts. Indeed, its activities are considered to be almost as advanced as Russia's.
Publication title: Aviation Week & Space Technology
Volume: 153
Issue: 9
Pages: 25
Number of pages: 0
Publication year: 2000
Publication date: August 28, 2000
x29 ROBERT WALL and DAVID A. FULGHUM : New Munitions Mandate: More Focused Firepower
2000-09
Abstract:
To maintain political support for the use of military force, US war planners are trying to ensure almost casualty-free wars. Doing so will demand tailored munitions for manned, stealthy, supersonic aircraft and unmanned aircraft and hypersonic weapons capable of attacking from great distances. The new generation of smart weapons must be small enough to carry inside stealth vehicles, withstand supersonic launch, quickly search out the correct targets, strike with precision, but with only the minimum required firepower. These weapons will be pitted against improving air defenses now on the international market and increasingly complex targets that may be hard to distinguish or separate from civilian facilities. The US Air Force Research Laboratory is pursuing a diverse approach to address the broadening target set war planners have projected. Among the recurring themes are smaller weapons, smarter, increasingly accurate seekers, and novel warheads.
Full text:
To maintain political support for the use of military force, U.S. war planners are trying to ensure almost casualty-free wars. But doing so will demand tailored munitions for manned, stealthy, supersonic aircraft and unmanned aircraft and hypersonic weapons capable of attacking from great distances.
The new generation of smart weapons must be small enough to carry inside stealth vehicles, withstand supersonic launch, quickly search out the correct targets, strike with precision, but with only the minimum required firepower. These weapons will be pitted against improving air defenses now on the international market and increasingly complex targets that may be hard to distinguish or separate from civilian facilities.
Political leaders are placing increasing constraints on military planners, who in turn are asking weapons experts to design the tools to carry out their missions in the politically charged environment. ``We are going to live with these small-scale conflicts for a number of years and need armaments that can effectively deal [with them],'' says Les McFawn, director of plans for the Air Armaments Center.
The U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory is pursuing a diverse approach to address the broadening target set war planners have projected. But among the recurring themes are smaller weapons; smarter, increasingly accurate seekers, and novel warheads.
THE SEARCH FOR SMALLER packaging has led to technology used by the Soviets for decades on supersonic air-to-air and ballistic missiles. Lattice fins are attracting particular interest because they embrace many of the munition concepts the Air Force wants to field. A lattice fin looks something like a waffle except that the holes go completely through the surface, leaving only a grid. Each part of the grid acts as a lifting surface, thus producing the same amount of control over flight as a conventional fin that is many times larger. The smaller fins require less electrical power and smaller actuators, enabling smaller, lighter and cheaper weapons.
Besides wanting to pack more arms into its stealthy manned and unmanned aircraft, USAF officials are turning to small weapons to minimize the area affected by a strike and reduce the chance of unintended damage. Munitions as small as 90 lb. are being studied that would produce far less collateral damage than the more traditional 500-, 1,000- and 2,000-lb. bombs.
Another approach drawing interest is to use penetrator warheads for soft targets. Their effect is more contained than one using a blast-fragmentation warhead, noted Frank Robbins, program director for precision strike weapons. Other technologies the Air Force is exploring are directional warheads that would focus their effect at a specific area, or adjustable warheads, on which a pilot or mission planner could ``tune'' the explosive effect of a weapon to match the target.
But there are limits to how far explosive power can be constrained, notes Bruce Simpson, deputy director of the armaments products. ``We don't have perfect intelligence [about the target], so at some point you have to generate overpressure'' to destroy it, he added. Another problem researchers hope technology can solve is gathering effective bomb damage assessment. Intelligence analysts and mission planners in almost every conflict are frustrated by an inability to tell whether or not an air raid successfully destroyed a target. ``That's a major concern for Air Combat Command,'' McFawn says.
USAF officials are considering a number of strategies. One idea is to equip some low-flying Locaas antiarmor weapons with cameras instead of warheads. The weapon would gather imagery as other Locaas attack their targets. Another idea is a munition that trails a battle damage assessment sensor, which could image a strike and relay the data to a command post in the seconds before impact.
BUT DEVELOPING A SYSTEM to provide such information highlights another issue for researchers--finding a low-cost solution to every problem. For example, attaching a terminal guidance sensor to the $18,000 Joint Direct Attack Munition would substantially increase the munition's cost and, therefore, isn't attractive, says Michael Hatcher, USAF JDAM program manager. The result is usually a compromise.
For example, USAF officials are considering such a subsystem for the $300,000 Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile, because adding the sensor would be cheaper than firing a second missile. The operational concept is expected to involve transmitting data about the health and location of the missile just before impact, either via a line-of-sight datalink to an RC-135 Rivet Joint or a U-2 flying overhead, said program manager Terry Little. Another approach would be to transmit the information through satellite communications.
Directed-energy weapons are another area researchers continue to explore with ambitions to build laser and high-power microwave (HPM) weapons. But progress has been slow, and developers struggle with making the technology fit into tactically applicable weapons. With HPM, ``generating enough power in a weapon is extremely hard to do,'' says Simpson. Fielding the weapon ``is still a long way off,'' he added. However, other researchers believe such weapons could be ready for delivery in several years (AW&ST July 5, 1999, p. 53).
The problem for laser weapons is finding enough room and power in relatively small tactical aircraft, said USAF Col. Rosanne Bailey, director of the Armament Product Group. The solution for tactical aircraft is expected to be solid-state lasers and not the chemical laser used on the much larger, Boeing 747-based YAL-1A Airborne Laser. But the development of these smaller lasers isn't far advanced yet, officials noted.
Because of budget squeezing throughout the munition programs, Air Force officials also are striving to find multiple applications for each weapon. Locaas, for example, may be used for missions other than hunting ballistic missile launchers, armor and mobile air defense systems. The relatively small and clandestine loitering munition could also dispense ground sensors for long-term surveillance in critical rear areas. Using skeet submunitions to attack several vehicles with each missile is another option, said program manager James M. Moore.
Far-term Air Force plans call for developing an Advanced Expeditionary Force weapon that could be employed in a variety of missions with a warhead whose effects could be selected in flight. The goal would be to reduce the logistics burden for the expeditionary units without losing the effectiveness of specialized weapons.
Illustration
Illustration: Graph: The Pentagon wants to increase the firepower of stealth aircraft, unmanned vehicles and hypersonic missiles. This scheme has a tactical munitions dispenser releasing a spread of four small cruise missiles to search the battlefield.
Subject: Military weapons; Defense industry; Military policy; Product development
Location: United States, US
Classification: 9190: United States; 8680: Transportation equipment industry; 1210: Politics & political behavior; 7500: Product planning & development
Publication title: Aviation Week & Space Technology
Volume: 153
Issue: 13
Pages: 78-79
Number of pages: 0
Publication year: 2000
Publication date: September 25, 2000
x30 DAVID A. FULGHUM and ROBERT WALL : UAV Weapons Focus of Debate
2000-09
Abstract:
Both US and British war planners see unmanned aircraft as an attractive option to carry both conventional and directed energy weapons. This new role for unmanned aircraft is being advocated by an increasing number of senior US Air Force officials who believe UAVs should be used from the outset to carry futuristic payloads such as directed energy and microwave weapons.
Full text:
Both U.S. and British war planners see unmanned aircraft as an attractive option to carry both conventional and directed energy weapons beginning some time during the next two decades.
In the early 1990s, the U.S. Air Force was experimenting with microwave weapons mounted on modified air-launched cruise missiles. The effort continues using newer technology and airframes. Since 1998, Britain has been working on integrating a high-powered microwave weapon into a medium-range unmanned aircraft. The combination is seen as an information warfare weapon for scrambling the memories of battlefield computers.
This new role for unmanned aircraft is being advocated by an increasing number of senior U.S. Air Force officials who believe UAVs should be used from the outset to carry futuristic payloads such as directed energy and microwave weapons.
Others want a more graduated process that refines the use of unmanned aircraft in the reconnaissance role and later incorporates small, conventional weapons. Only much later would unmanned vehicles work into the more exotic combat roles.
``One camp says these are intelligence-gathering and reconnaissance platforms, so why try to weaponize them?'' an Air Force munitions specialist said. ``The other side says let's experiment.'' Either way, senior Pentagon leaders are interested in a substantial shift to unmanned air and ground combat vehicles by 2010-20, he said.
But the experiments with weapons continue. By November the U.S. is going to fire the 100-lb. Hellfire missile from a Predator UAV. Since both items are already in the U.S. inventory, that means the Pentagon will have an on-the-shelf combat capability. A specialized unmanned combat aircraft (Boeing's UCAV) will be rolled out soon and will first fly early in 2001.
Gen. John Jumper, the chief of Air Combat Command, has pushed the concept by choosing the Army's helicopter-launched Hellfire missile to make the initial demonstration, because of the matchup between the Predator UAV's laser designator and the missile's laser guidance. The Air Force was handicapped because it currently doesn't have any air-to-ground weapons in the under-500-lb. range.
``The Army has a 100-lb. weapon, so that's why it was chosen,'' an Air Force official said. ``Jumper said, `Let's go demonstrate that as a near-term capability.' They have to beef up the hard point on each wing, and you have to sacrifice fuel.'' But even with two Hellfires, the Predator could stay aloft for 12 hr. or more.
The project began with the desire to match miniature munitions with unmanned aircraft. The Air Force is already developing the small smart bomb (SSB) in sizes down to 100 lb., but they won't be in production for a few years. Neither will the UCAV be operational for years, so the services are looking at interim, temporary solutions, and they are trying to answer some of the problems that might crop up.
Can UAVs drop only one weapon and still fly and land with an asymmetrical load? When Hellfire pulls itself off the UAV's wing, will the forces involved make the Predator unstable? Or will the exhaust burn the control surfaces or will the debris damage the aircraft? In fact, to avoid such problems in the long term, the Air Force is looking at gravity-launched weapons like SSB. Moreover, UCAVs will be stealthy like modern fighters and will therefore need small weapons that can be carried internally.
Among the small weapons being eyed for UCAV use are the 500-lb. JDAM, 250-lb. SSB, four-packs of smaller SSBs, miniature air-launched decoys (used for air defense suppression and cruise missile defense), a compressed carriage advanced antiradiation missile for killing antiaircraft radars and two packs of the Locaas antiarmor weapon. The latter is like a small cruise missile that can roam the battlefield looking for specific types of targets. Air Force officials also are looking at a 250-lb. laser-guided training round that could be fitted with a small warhead.
With an off-board intelligence, precise targeting, a precision weapon and a payload of 6-12 small weapons, Air Force planners believe the UCAV will prove itself an operationally effective weapon capable of dealing with mobile, pop-up threats, the Air Force official said.
Photograph
Photograph: USAF plans to demonstrate arming unmanned aircraft using a Predator UAV and two Hellfire missiles (illustrated here).
Subject: Military weapons; Military aircraft; Military policy; Technological change
Location: United States, US, United Kingdom, UK
Classification: 9175: Western Europe; 9190: United States; 8680: Transportation equipment industry; 1210: Politics & political behavior; 9000: Short article
Publication title: Aviation Week & Space Technology
Volume: 153
Issue: 13
Pages: 29-30
Number of pages: 0
Publication year: 2000
Publication date: September 25, 2000
x31 Fulghum, David a : JSF Competitors Planning Weapons Payload Expansion
2000-09
Abstract:
Boeing and Lockheed Martin, opponents in the Joint Strike Fighter competition but likely collaborators once a prime contractor is selected, are mapping out their strategies for expanding the weapons payload of the next-generation stealth strike aircraft. Dennis Muilenburg, director of Boeing's weapons systems, said they are refining their overall growth plan for JSF, and are making sure they can integrate advanced and future weapons. They would like to avoid designing a weapons bay or other system that only meets the near-term requirements. The task facing JSF researchers is formidable. They must keep aircraft survivable - which means maintaining radar, infrared and visual stealth even as the world's surface-to-air antiaircraft weapons are improving - and they must increase the number of targets an aircraft can attack during a single sortie.
Full text:
Boeing and Lockheed Martin, opponents in the Joint Strike Fighter competition but likely collaborators once a prime contractor is selected, are mapping out their strategies for expanding the weapons payload of the next- generation stealth strike aircraft.
``We want a lot of downstream growth capability,'' said Dennis Muilenburg, director of Boeing's weapon systems. ``We're refining our overall growth plan for JSF, and we're making sure we can integrate advanced and future weapons. We'd like to avoid designing a weapons bay or other system that only meets the near-term requirements.
``This is a hot topic for us right now,'' he said. ``We have to keep the total ownership cost down and at the same time maintain an open architecture for easy, affordable upgrades.''
The task facing JSF researchers is formidable. They must keep aircraft survivable--which means maintaining radar, infrared and visual stealth even as the world's surface-to-air antiaircraft weapons are improving--and they must increase the number of targets an aircraft can attack during a single sortie. Such demands will force contractors to make a number of near-term decisions.
Aircraft signature can be maintained if all weapons are carried internally. But this restriction will limit payloads if bays aren't expanded. Weapons that attach to the outside of the aircraft with flat, vertical pylons are the major sources of radar reflections on the current generation of strike aircraft.
If carried externally, weapons must be long-range enough to be launched outside air defense weapons' lethal zone--a radius that is expected to grow to around 250 mi. when the Russian-built S-400 surface-to-air missile family goes into service.
Or U.S. contractors will have to make another attempt at developing conformal weapons that attach to an aircraft's exterior but are designed to blend into the skin and offer far less radar reflectivity than a standard weapon mounted to an exterior pylon.
Boeing executives say they are going to use all three approaches to increase the offensive punch of the JSF which so far has a baseline internal weapons load of the 1,000-lb. and 2,000-lb. Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) and the AIM-120 medium-range air-to-air missile (Amraam).
``There is heavy interest right now in the miniature munitions arena,'' Muilenburg said. ``That covers a wide variety of size ranges. We're working with our advanced weapons teams on packaging those weapons as well as working on carriage concepts'' for ease of integration in an internal weapons bay.
``THE UNDERLYING DESIRE, from a concept of operations standpoint, is that by carrying more of these highly accurate miniature munitions internally, we can increase the number of targets we can go after on each sortie,'' Muilenburg said. ``By increasing the number of kills per sortie, it improves our ability to prosecute the war by effectively increasing sortie generation rate. It also enhances overall survivability because it reduces the amount of exposure in the threat area by accomplishing more with each mission,'' he said.
Near-term initiatives involve:
-- Building 500-lb., 250-lb. and 100-lb. JDAM-type, GPS-guided bombs as part of the U.S. Air Force's small smart bomb (SSB) programs.
-- Improving weapon accuracy so that targets don't have to be hit repeatedly. Also, smaller warheads require more accuracy to be as effective as larger weapons.
-- Repackaging some larger weapons like the radar-killing Harm missile to make them fit into the JSF and improving launcher concepts.
Two Boeing-USAF projects are looking at launcher designs that integrate into today's aircraft yet can be adjusted to carry new weapons as they appear, thus eliminating the need to continuously modify the aircraft. The new launchers (called small munition dispensers) carry four- and eight-packs of miniature weapons that could fit into the bays of JSF and other stealth aircraft, Muilenburg said.
Another Boeing effort would fit two 500-lb. bombs with compressed-carriage designs (in this case new grid or lattice-type fins which shorten the length) in tandem into the space taken up by a single 2,000-lb. JDAM.
In order to ensure JSF survivability, Pentagon tacticians and planners have built in a requirement that the aircraft be able to launch weapons during supersonic flight. The lattice-type fins have been identified as offering more compact storage, better response to the shock of deployment during high-speed launches and comparable control once the weapon is in flight.
``It's a very clean packaging concept,'' Muilenburg said. The supersonic launch option is ``primarily a survivability benefit by minimizing the pilot's time over the threat area.''
A future step is to adapt the lattice fin to submunitions that would be launched from hypersonic weapons. Hypersonic weapons can travel long distances quickly, but many submunitions must be slowed quickly near the end of the flight to give them time to fan out and locate small, mobile targets. An alternative is to develop weapons with thrust vectoring that entirely avoids the need for fins and allows for even greater reductions in weapons size and drag.
There's some synergy there for the future which includes transferring the technology to high-speed missiles and unmanned combat aircraft.
Other types of weapons under development for the JSF include directed energy weapons like lasers, high-power microwave or magnetic pulse generators that can scramble the electronics of computers.
``We fully expect to have directed energy growth capability designed into JSF,'' Muilenburg said. ``We're actively working in that arena.''
Also under development are advanced versions of carbon-fiber/wire weapons. Carbon wires were dropped from Tomahawk missiles on electrical grids in Iraq and from tactical munitions dispensers (TMDs) launched from dive-bombing F-117s in Yugoslavia to shut off power during critical periods of the air offensives. Another version of the weapon uses a finely powdered version of the carbon fibers that dispenses into a cloud. But the residue has proven so hard to clean up that the material hasn't been used operationally.
Air Force officials say that since the Kosovo air campaign, carbon wire/fiber warheads have been installed on a GPS-guided version of the TMD called the Wind-Corrected Munitions Dispenser (WCMD) and will be a warhead option on the Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile (Jassm). The WCMD can be launched from 30,000-40,000 ft. above the effective range of antiaircraft artillery and infrared surface-to-air missiles. JSF is already designed to carry the WCMD internally, which would eliminate the need for riskier low-level, dive bombing tactics. Jassm can be fired from outside the lethal zone of even the longest range, modern antiaircraft weapons.
``Jassm is an interesting weapon and it is on the list of JSF weapons to be integrated on the airplane,'' Muilenburg said. ``It is called out as an external carriage weapon.''
However, making smaller weapons isn't the only initiative to increase the JSF's payload. Both Lockheed Martin and Boeing have plans to add weaponry. Lockheed Martin officials have pointed to the 51-in.-dia. space that runs through their design that is vacant when the lift-fan is not needed for short-takeoff and vertical-landing (STOVL) operations. Program officials have suggested the space and power available from the driveshaft could be used for a combat laser weapon or electronic jamming equipment.
``Redesigning the weapons bays is not a smart move,'' said Harold Blot, Lockheed Martin vice president and JSF deputy program manager, although they intend to find more efficient ways to use the existing volume. The more attractive possibility is to use the lift-fan space for other tasks. Company officials envision mounting the lift-fan on slides so that it can be easily removed and replaced with electronic jamming payloads or a futuristic laser weapon. The space offers access to both the top and the bottom of the aircraft which could allow the weapon to be used in air-to-air, air-to-ground and anti-satellite combat. Blot said Lockheed Martin is in conversation with several companies about the power and dimensions of laser suitable for the aircraft.
Boeing researchers say they purposely designed the weapons bays to keep them away from engine inlets and other critical components in the aircraft. The result is the ability to expand these spaces by perhaps 6 in. or more in length at either end and a similar amount in width. The latter involves changing the aircraft's mold line slightly, probably with bulged weapons bay doors.
The result could be a 20-30% expansion in the Boeing JSF's weapons bay volume, Muilenburg said. The weapons bays were side mounted precisely to keep them modular, away from other critical components and thus receptive to change.
The aircraft's exterior also is considered a flexible medium. This could involve the attachment of conformal weapons mounted on wings or fuselage. Or weapons could be mounted on the inside of weapons bay doors. Perhaps most interesting is the conformal mold-line technology that offers a flexible exterior surface on the JSF. That would permit the forming of conformal bulges (probably through the installation of modified panels) in the aircraft's skin at critical points. Weapons bay doors are the easiest application of that technology.
IN ORDER TO ENSURE that JSF's stealthiness is maintained, engineers will continue to work on reducing the aircraft's signature in the RF (radar), infrared (heat) and visual frequencies, Pentagon officials said. In separate programs, the Pentagon is known to be developing aircraft coatings that can diffuse hot spots on an aircraft's skin or change its hue and brightness.
Despite the emphasis on internal carriage of weapons, Boeing is also looking at how best to carry external weapons.
Hard points on the JSF's wings can carry conventional weapons, but advanced weaponry may offer conformal designs and families of reduced signature devices. ``There are a lot of options with external carriage,'' Muilenburg said. ``And some of the concepts being worked on to look at reduced signature concepts open up even more operational flexibility.''
Photograph
Photograph: JSF weapons bays are designed for one 2,000-lb. bomb and an Amraam air-to-air missile, but there are plans to greatly increase firepower.
Illustration
Illustration: Graph: Boeing Tandem Compressed Mk-82 JDAM For JSF Internal Bay
Boeing can put two 500-lb. weapons in the space designed for a 2,000-lb. bomb.
Subject: Military weapons; Defense industry; Military aircraft; Product development; Competition
Location: United States, US
Company / organization: Name: Lockheed Martin Corp; Ticker: LMT; NAICS: 334290, 212319, 336411, 336413, 336414; Name: Boeing Aerospace Co; NAICS: 336414
Classification: 9190: United States; 8680: Transportation equipment industry; 7500: Product planning & development
Publication title: Aviation Week & Space Technology
Volume: 153
Issue: 13
Pages: 82-83
Number of pages: 0
Publication year: 2000
Publication date: September 25, 2000
x32 Scott, William B : Experimental Center Nails Time-Critical Targets
2000-10
Abstract:
A recent joint-service experiment demonstrated that the US Air Force can now consistently detect, geolocate and strike time-critical targets in the air or on the ground in a matter of minutes. Preliminary data from a key initiative of the latest Joint Expeditionary Force Experiment (JEFX 2000) that ended Sept. 14 proved that an efficient process and new technology can translate to target kills. In essence, sharing existing sensors, feeding their information through a time-critical targeting (TCT) cell within the Air Operations Center (AOC), and matching on-call weapon systems to specific objectives greatly reduced the time needed to eliminate pop-up targets.
Full text:
A recent joint-service experiment demonstrated that the U.S. Air Force can now consistently detect, geolocate and strike time-critical targets in the air or on the ground in a matter of minutes.
Preliminary data from a key initiative of the latest Joint Expeditionary Force Experiment (JEFX 2000) that ended Sept. 14 proved that an efficient process and new technology can translate to target ``kills.'' In essence, sharing existing sensors, feeding their information through a time-critical targeting (TCT) cell within the Air Operations Center (AOC), and matching on-call weapon systems to specific objectives greatly reduced the time needed to eliminate ``pop-up'' targets.
``This [TCT] system proved very lethal to the `red' forces,'' said Col. Joe Reyne, 53rd Test Group commander, summarizing results of the JEFX ``live-fly'' period on the Nellis range complex. ``We had a 32-to-0 kill ratio (air-to-air) on the first day. On the second, by being more aggressive with our strikers, we had a 28-to-3 split, and two of the losses were air-to-ground strikers. [On the last day], we had another 32-to-0 air-to-air score. That's what you get when you have a good
system for finding and attacking fleeting targets.''
Although weeks of poring over assessors' data are still necessary before conclusions can be drawn, it appears the same level of success was achieved in the air-to-ground category. In short, the problem of finding and destroying ``shoot-and-scoot'' mobile missiles--which frustrated the U.S. and its coalition partners during the 1991 gulf war--appears to be solved. The question now is whether adequate funding will be made available to field a system similar to the prototype TCT center demonstrated here.
AS IT STANDS NOW, the Air Force plans to invest $10 million of Fiscal 2001 money in top-priority concepts identified during the last three JEFX events. Under the Warfighter Rapid Acquisition Program, these funds--plus another $25 million in Fiscal 2002--are dedicated to underwriting emerging high-leverage concepts and technologies in order to get them into the field quickly, according to Col. Steven Pennington, chief of wargaming and experimentation at Air Force headquarters.
Time-critical targeting was only one of 45 process and technology initiatives explored during JEFX 2000, an annual joint-service, USAF-led experiment combining live forces, models and simulations, and new technologies. It was established as a vehicle for exploring new operational concepts and nascent technology that could enhance warfighting capabilities. This year, 35 different computer models and simulations were involved at 11 sites across the U.S. The approximately three-week event concluded with 78 aircraft flying simulated combat missions over the Nellis ranges.
Key nodes for the experiment were the Combined Air Operations Center at Hurlburt Field, Fla., simulating an AOC deployed to an overseas location. A forward-based extension of the CAOC here at Nellis AFB, was the focus for prosecuting time-critical targets. An Operations Support Center at Langley AFB, Va., served as the primary reach-back node, providing support functions for deployed elements. These and several other entities focused on a simulated combat situation in which one nation invaded a neighbor, requiring the deployment of U.S. forces to the region.
Senior officers said JEFX ``hit its stride'' this year, with significant progress being made in several areas. That may have been stimulated by the interest and involvement of top USAF leadership. For example, Gen. Michael Ryan, USAF chief of staff, and several members of the Senate Appropriations Committee visited the AOC at Hurlburt Field for a firsthand look at JEFX initiatives. During the Sept. 8 visit, Ryan underscored the growing importance of command and control functions in today's expeditionary force organization by declaring AOCs as ``official weapons systems.'' That means AOCs will have the same clout as the B-2 or F-22 weapons systems when it comes to allocating resources to acquisition, training and support.
The profile of JEFX 2000 was further elevated by Gen. John P. Jumper, Air Combat Command chief, serving as the combined forces air component commander during the experiment. Based on his experience as USAF's European commander in Kosovo last year, Jumper declared command and control as ``number-one on that list'' of priority items to be explored, and dealing with time-critical situations was a key element of C2. Dealing with TCTs is a ``hot issue in the Pentagon and Congress these days,'' an officer said.
``Quite simply, what we're trying to do is get that horizontal integration of our shooters, our intelligence, our reconnaissance and our surveillance assets to decrease the timeline from target discovery to target destruction,'' Jumper said. ``The way we do this is . . . marry our processes with the technology.''
The secret to consistently finding and destroying time-critical targets--such as mobile ground-to-ground missiles, enemy fighters and weapons of mass destruction--was a smart combination of timely sensor information, new processes and advanced information technology. This year's JEFX built on multiple efforts underway for up to a decade, but the unifying piece was a concept of operations or ``conops'' co-written by Maj. Gen. John A. Corder (USAF, Ret.) and others. Corder was the officer in charge of executing air operations in the gulf war and served as a JEFX ``mentor'' this year.
``WE'VE BEEN WORKING on time-critical targeting for [almost a decade], but we hit a plateau,'' Corder said. ``The hard part is getting at targets that aren't on the air tasking order, that pop-up. We need to get down to hitting them in single-digit minutes . . . and that [requires] a near-real-time, staring and dwelling, constantly refreshed picture of the ground.''
The conops developed by Corder, Hugh Smith and other ex-officers called for sharing intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) assets, such as AWACS, Joint-STARS, Predator and Global Hawk unmanned air vehicles, U-2 aircraft and spy satellites. These sensor platforms already probe the ``battlespace,'' but the data produced aren't used efficiently, they noted. Through centralized management and control of these assets, both command and TCT objectives could be accomplished with the same resources.
``This process gets us out of the TCT idea and into `dynamic battle control.' But the whole operation depends on sensor control,'' Corder said. ``If you don't give me the sensors, I can't build the [comprehensive ground] picture, and we can't do TCT.'' Using ISR sensors in this manner ``attacks many sacred cows,'' Corder admitted, because commanders want dedicated control of those assets.
During JEFX 2000, though, a broad family of sensors was shared with the TCT cell here, and their data ``mined'' to detect, locate and prosecute fleeting targets. The TCT cell comprised dozens of fighter and bomber pilots, ISR sensor experts, weapons directors and information specialists housed in a single room within the JEFX forward-AOC ``compound'' at Nellis. The room was arranged in a horseshoe shape, with double rows of workstations on each ``wing'' flanking a team that included the TCT director. All players could view three wall-size screens that displayed a variety of information, such as an image from a Predator UAV, a map showing the locations of friendly and enemy forces, and a listing of detected ``objects.'' After going through a structured evaluation process, some of these would be designated time-critical targets, complete with track information and a data block. Both airborne and ground targets could be included on the priority list.
``THIS [ROOM] IS LIKE an airplane cockpit,'' said Col. Marc H. Lindsley, the TCT director for JEFX. ``Everybody's on headsets, using common intercom channels. Having flown F-111s, I would equate the workload in this center to [that of] a target run. You're listening to several [communication] networks, and it sounds just like you're on an AWACS or Joint-STARS or an RJ [Rivet Joint]. This TCT center is truly becoming a weapon system.''
TCT ``Hunters'' are positioned on the left side of the cell, collecting ISR information and looking for possible pop-up enemy targets. In the middle are what one officer called the ``Deciders'' who determine whether an object should be declared a time-critical target and what its priority should be. On the right are ``Killers'' who match available weapons systems--which ranged from Army AH-64 Apache helicopters and surface-to-surface missiles to Navy land-attack Tomahawk cruise missiles and Air Force fighters and bombers.
Although TCT participants here wouldn't discuss them, a number of classified and developmental weapons also were considered available. These probably included simulations of high-power microwave systems, space-based and airborne directed-energy weapons, and various information warfare tools capable of rendering a target ineffective.
Several experimental sensors also were employed for JEFX evaluation. The USAF Space Warfare Center had a team on-site using hyperspectral imaging systems to locate hidden and camouflaged targets. A simulated space-based radar consisted of a radar with moving-target-indicator capability mounted in a T-39 Sabreliner that searched the ranges for potential targets. All these data were fed to the TCT's ``Hunters,'' helping them identify potential targets.
Once a target was listed and a weapons system matched to it, key information--including imagery--was relayed to the attackers, either by data link or as a voice message. The value of broadband data links quickly became evident. Aircrews in F-15C and F-15E fighters equipped with Fighter Data Links or JTIDS systems were particularly effective in killing both air and ground targets, simply because they received critical information quickly.
``The big story of the week was data links. That old adage of a picture is worth a thousand words becomes real when you're traveling 1,000 ft./sec. at 25,000 ft.,'' Reyne said. ``One picture can define the whole air-to-air war, and it worked the same way for air-to-ground.''
Data link-equipped fighters assigned to TCT duty received information about ``red-air'' fighters (U.S. Marine Corps F/A-18s) 120-200 miles away, thanks to AWACS information relayed through the TCT. F/A-18s could be monitored while they air-refueled, then formed attack cells.
``WE JUST WATCHED them and didn't have to radiate [with our radars], because the data links kept everybody in the loop,'' Reyne said. ``That worked wonders. Several times our F-15Es had information about Scud launchers passed to them via data link tracks, and they were on top of the [launchers] inside of 15 min. We know we have the capability now to detect, locate and destroy [mobile missiles] in real-time. We proved it several times--and it was very impressive.''
The experimental TCT center also handled a simulated combat search and rescue (CSAR) scenario as a time-critical task. As soon as the shot-down pilot's ``Mayday'' call was received, the center focused its sensors on the proper area and started preparing for a rescue, using the same process it would in going after an enemy target. Decisions were made, properly equipped and armed aircraft were selected and the mission launched within minutes. A force of F-16s, A-10s and an HH-60 helicopter, all fitted with Situational Awareness Datalinks, was directed to the survivor's location.
THE FIGHTERS suppressed enemy aircraft and ground patrols while the helicopter popped over a ridge, then dropped into a hover at the designated location. ``The survivor stood up about 8 meters away, at the HH-60's one-o'clock. No smoke, no mirrors. Just radios and the ability to data link all the right information got us within meters of that guy,'' Reyne said. ``From the time he called `Mayday!' until he was picked up was 55 min.''
The TCT demonstrated through JEFX 2000 is not perfect, but for once the ``process'' seems to be ready before the technology to support it is.
``The concept and the process are ready for fielding. The systems are another issue. There are definitely some systems here that are mature, and some that are not,'' Lindsley said after the experiment ended. ``Some systems will just go away because they don't work. How we did it here is probably not exactly the way the Air Force will decide to do time-critical targeting--but we've made some real progress.''
Photograph
Photograph: Equipped with Fighter Data Link pods, F-15Es ``killed'' many airborne and ground-based time-critical targets identified by a TCT center at Nellis AFB, Nev., during JEFX 2000.
JIM HASELTINE
Illustration
Illustration: Graph: TIME CRITICAL TARGETING
Subject: Defense industry; Military weapons; Radar systems; Sensors
Location: United States, US
Classification: 9190: United States; 9550: Public sector; 8650: Electrical & electronics industries
Publication title: Aviation Week & Space Technology
Volume: 153
Issue: 14
Pages: 70-72
Number of pages: 0
Publication year: 2000
Publication date: October 2, 2000
x33 Wall, Robert : Directed-Energy Threat Inches Forward
2000-10
Abstract:
The U.S. military is increasingly likely to confront directed-energy weapons in combat situations, but Pentagon officials believe truly tactically relevant weapons of this type are still far from being fielded.
Full text:
The U.S. military is increasingly likely to confront directed-energy (DE) weapons in combat situations, but Pentagon officials believe truly tactically relevant weapons of this type are still far from being fielded.
The effects of radio-frequency weapons, a class of DE systems which generate high-power electro-magnetic pulses to disrupt or destroy the electronics of an enemy's hardware, have repeatedly drawn high-level interest. Congress, in the Fiscal 2001 Defense authorization bill, is requiring the Pentagon to establish a commission to assess the threat of an electro-magnetic pulse (EMP) attack on the U.S.
WHILE EMP EFFECTS are generally associated with a nuclear detonation, some radio-frequency weapons act in a similar way, even if at different frequencies and lesser intensity. Particularly ultra-wideband RF weapons try to emulate the effects of a nuclear blast. The threat of directed energy weapons has gotten a lot of attention in the intelligence community and again in a recent National Intelligence Council assessment.
But aside from the actual use of a nuclear weapon ``the magnitude of the problem is grossly overstated,'' said a Defense Dept. official closely monitoring such developments. ``Much of what you hear is overblown'' in terms of RF weapons.
While advances are being registered in the building of both RF weapons and lasers, Defense Dept. officials believe battlefield use is not likely for at least another decade. An enemy would ``have to do some amount of work prior to deploying'' a system, a second official added.
One problem, in particular, is packaging the systems. While a number of countries are experimenting with RF weapons technology, the devices are very large and not operationally suitable. Furthermore, the experts add, just because a system can be made to work in a laboratory doesn't mean it will function in combat.
The RF weapons threat can't be entirely dismissed, though. The Pentagon officials note there are relatively small devices already available and being marketed that have some operational utility. ``Terrorists or special forces may be able to use small RF devices and get fairly close to the target and disrupt electronics,'' one of them said. But the problem with existing systems is that they are very short-range, making them suitable for special operations but not useful for combat. Nevertheless, ``there is some concern'' about them.
A similar split between the maturity of different classes of systems exists with laser weapons. Devices to blind electro-optical sensors already exist. For instance, Russian motorized rifle regiments deploy with such equipment. Similarly, China has been marketing a dazzler, a relatively low-power laser that temporarily disrupts sensors, although no overseas sales have been registered so far.
But, U.S. officials note, ``high-energy lasers are farther in the future.'' For instance, Russia's Almaz design bureau, which specializes in air-defense weapons, has plans for a laser-based surface-to-air missile system, but the organization itself doesn't expect to have an operational system until around 2010, according to Defense Dept. officials. Laser-based antisatellite systems also have attracted much interest.
DESPITE BUDGETARY cutbacks, Russia is still seen as the leader in foreign RF and laser weapons development. ``The Russians are strong in this area,'' one official said. Although ``how much money they really have is hard to tell,'' he added.
China, for example, has spent considerable time analyzing the usefulness of these types of weapons and expressed strong interest in fielding them. But while the country is developing directed energy technology ``a lot of it they are getting from other places,'' the official said. Furthermore, he noted, China is unlikely to overtake Russia in directed energy development in the next few years.
One of the big questions still surrounding many of the ongoing directed energy weapons projects is their effectiveness. The Defense Dept. officials note that conventional weapons are still more useful than trying to achieve the same effect with a laser or RF weapon. Another problem is that not every target is affected by RF weapons operating at the same frequency. Developing a system that can attack a sufficiently broad spectrum of targets may be difficult, the officials said.
Subject: Military weapons; Radio frequency; Research & development; R & D
Location: United States, US
Classification: 9190: United States; 9000: Short article; 8680: Transportation equipment industry; 5400: Research & development
Publication title: Aviation Week & Space Technology
Volume: 153
Issue: 18
Pages: 70
Number of pages: 0
Publication year: 2000
Publication date: October 30, 2000
x34 Fulghum, David a : U.S. Navy Eyes Full Range Of Unmanned Aircraft
2000-11
Abstract:
The U.S. Navy is juggling many technical and operational options for unmanned aircraft, but it contends that this reflects a broad interest in such aircraft that is tempered by slim budgets. However, there is no confusion about the basic need for such vehicles.
Full text:
The U.S. Navy is juggling many technical and operational options for unmanned aircraft, but it contends that this reflects a broad interest in such aircraft that is tempered by slim budgets. However, there is no confusion about the basic need for such vehicles.
The service wants, in this order:
-- A shorter range tactical UAV for reconnaissance of the battlefield and designating targets. Currently, the Navy is developing the vertical takeoff UAV (VTUAV), based on a helicopter airframe, for that mission.
-- A medium-range, long-endurance UAV for surveillance of a foe with all-weather video, electronic and radar sensors.
-- Access to the intelligence products gathered by Air Force unmanned aircraft, particularly the very long-range, high-altitude Global Hawk UAV.
-- An unmanned (or uninhabited) combat aerial vehicle (UCAV) that can carry both lethal weapons like the small smart bomb and information warfare weapons. The latter could include electronic jammers and directed energy devices such as lasers and high-power microwave weapons to disable electronic battlefield devices and computers.
Unofficial statements that the VTUAV program has delayed its operational debut by two years until 2005, they say, are untrue.
``As of today, the initial operational capability for VTUAV is late 2003 or early 2004,'' a Navy official close to the program said. ``We're sticking to that because it relates to when we phase out Pioneer.'' Navy and Marine Corps units have used Pioneer in combat since 1991, but now they want a more versatile aircraft that carries larger payloads. ``It depends in part on what the final budget is,'' he said.
Air Force veterans of the Predator UAV program say the Navy's plans are too optimistic. Predator has been flying for six years and is still not officially operational, they said. For the Navy's VTUAV program to be operational by 2003, the aircraft should already be in production. The Navy believes the faster schedule is possible because the airframe is basically that of a helicopter made by Schweizer, and the payload is commercial off-the-shelf equipment.
Therefore, the pressure on the Navy to produce a platform quickly will grow. ``This is the solution to a lot of things that the Navy needs,'' the official said. ``People are going to get excited about it and are already queuing up to put payloads on the aircraft. The VTUAV solidly answers the Navy's requirement,'' he said. ``The question being asked is, `Is the requirement good enough?' Every year there are more and different needs. It carries a 200-lb. payload, maybe more if I sacrifice some fuel. I can probably build a synthetic aperture radar and moving target indicator small enough to fit. I can probably get an electro-optical/infrared payload to do precision targeting at low cost.''
Critics of the Navy say the concurrent planning for a medium-range, long-endurance (MRE) UAV indicates the Navy already recognizes that its requirements for VTUAV are too modest. Not so, reply Navy planners. [Critics say,] ``What's this MRE thing and doesn't it look like we're looking ahead to the next thing?'' the official said. ``But the definition of MRE is an aircraft to fill the gap between VTUAV and [the Air Force's] high-altitude, 32-hr.-endurance Global Hawk UAV. We think there is a realm between them'' that requires a specialized aircraft.
The answer could be the Predator UAV which is currently being flown by two Air Force reconnaissance squadrons. The Navy might buy its own aircraft, or to save money may choose to draw data from deployed USAF aircraft. ``Let's not spend so much money doing individual projects,'' the Navy official said. ``We're not doing the same missions [as the Air Force], which may require specialized aircraft, but we can share payloads and save money by developing them jointly. There are also savings in developing the tactical common data link and tactical control station for dissemination of the data and controlling the air vehicles.''
On the other hand, ``We have found that the Predator cannot be economically marinized,'' the Navy official said. Also, does the Navy aircraft need to be vertical takeoff, short takeoff and vertical landing or land-based? ``We want to see some options,'' he said. ``What we're doing is pretty much a paper-based study on what it should look like, do we need it, is it organic and what are the tradeoffs?''
Air Force planners describe dealings involving Predator as adversarial to this point and say that despite Navy interest, they have more involvement with NATO. ``They may be thinking, but they're not talking to us,'' an Air Force official said. Navy officials, however, say their relationship with the Air Force has been excellent, especially in the development of the Defense Dept.'s UAV master plan.
The Navy and Air Force agree that a primary role for the tactical UAV is locating moving targets on the battlefield. They know that high-flying, long-endurance UAVs like the Global Hawk can find fixed sites with their more capable sensors.
``Tactical really comes into play in finding moving targets and keeping an eye on them,'' the Navy official said. ``That's going to be the tool that everyone's going to want. When you find a moving target, you can anchor a UAV over it and key an eye on it until you deliver ordnance.''
A new technology that may help the process is the use of high-definition digital television instead of standard video, which is too blurry for accurate analysis (see p. 57).
In development at the Naval Research Laboratory is a system that uses individual digital frames from a high-definition digital television that is anchored to a geographic spot. Even recording a scene at a relatively slow rate, it can catch movement, decide where the object is going and predict where it's going to be when the precision munitions arrive.
Another influence on UAV programs will be Europe's participation.
``The U.K., Canada, France and Germany are doing some exciting work,'' the Navy official said. ``The U.K. is really looking forward to this technology answering a lot of their [tactical aviation] needs.'' (Other sources have revealed that Britain is putting a directed energy weapon on a high-speed UAV for information warfare.) For countries with small defense budgets and without a constellation of reconnaissance satellites, ``This is an answer.
``ALSO, I THINK EVERYONE OVERSEAS has embraced the tactical control system concept which offers a single software architecture that allows you to control access to other people's UAVs and to disseminate data through your own [communications and intelligence] nodes,'' he said. ``We finally worked a pure software solution. It's going to be open architecture software that is easily scalable and upgradeable, flexible and interoperable'' even for older computer systems, he said.
Perhaps the most closely held technologies associated with UAVs, and arguably the most important for future conflicts, is information operations (IO) and information warfare (IW). That includes attacking enemy information--most likely computers--to destroy their capabilities through such activity as erasing memory, or penetrating the system to read files and monitor e-mail. ``The IO/IW, intelligence and cryptography folks are involved daily,'' the Navy official said. ``They are helping us build the requirement for both [computer] defense and attack.''
The Navy is also looking at how they might use the data that can be pulled in by a Global Hawk-size UAV that can carry a large payload and sit over a faraway trouble spot for 32 hr. or more at a time.
``We are looking at the Global Hawk, which we don't think we have to reinvent,'' the Navy official said. ``Can we use Global Hawk or can we just take advantage of the existing [Air Force] capabilities? I think the Navy is leaning toward the latter using its tactical control system which allows us to download data and images to users of the [command and control, intelligence and communications] nodes.''
Finally, the Navy has plans for the use of uninhabited combat air vehicles (UCAVs). Right now, UCAVs are defined as unmanned aircraft that can strike with bombs, missiles and other lethal payloads including directed energy weapons.
However, Pentagon legal advisors continue to wrestle with how to differentiate between cruise missiles that are limited by treaties and UCAVs which the U.S. contends do not break any international agreements.
Navy officials believe they can see a way through the maze of potential treaty concerns. They ensure that there is a man in control of weapons-carrying UCAVs (hence the reference to uninhabited instead of unmanned) and that the aircraft are built to survive several missions during their operational lives and thereby can't be considered expendable like cruise missiles.
``When does this thing with weapons become a bomber or a cruise missile?'' the Navy official said. ``That's the treaty issue we're dealing with. I think that with a person in the loop, it becomes an unmanned bomber instead of a cruise missile. UCAV is a capability we want to develop. Uninhabited implies there will always be a man in the loop because there are lethal capabilities involved. We're looking at UAVs to be autonomous. Push one button to go out and come back. [By contrast] there will be lots of human intervention with UCAV. You are going to have to understand and apply the rules of engagement.''
Photograph
Photograph: Northrop Grumman's Firescout is expected to be the first in a new generation of unmanned reconnaissance and strike aircraft for the U.S. Navy. However, service officials still have unresolved funding and requirement problems. Their needs for now far outstrip their ability to pay.
Subject: Military aircraft; Intelligence gathering; Research & development; R & D; Defense spending; Military policy
Location: United States, US
Company / organization: Name: Navy-US; NAICS: 928110; SIC: 9700
Classification: 8680: Transportation equipment industry; 9190: United States; 1120: Economic policy & planning
Publication title: Aviation Week & Space Technology
Volume: 153
Issue: 19
Pages: 59-60
Number of pages: 0
Publication year: 2000
Publication date: November 6, 2000
x35 Michael R. Frater and Michael Ryan : Electronic warfare for the digitized battlefield.
2001
Scitech Book News 25.4 (Dec 2001): n/a.
ISBN: 1580532713
PUBLISHER: Artech House
PUBLISH DATE: 2001
PAGES: 262
PRICE: $95.00
SERIES: Artech House information warfare library
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CLASSIFICATION: UG485
REVIEW: Frater and Ryan (both electrical engineering, Australian Defence Force Academy) examine the issues related to the effect of electronic warfare on the business of command and control on the modern digitized battlefield. Their focus is on the components and techniques employed at the tactical level of ground warfare. Coverage includes, for example, network- centric warfare, tactical trunk communications, electronic protection, and directed-energy weapons. (�2001 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR)
x36 Michael R. Frater and Michael Ryan : Electronic Warfare for the Digitized Battlefield
2001
x37 Russian Federation
2001-01
Russian Aerospace Industry Organization
The Russian aerospace industrial base is set up in a different fashion than European or American practice, though it is now in the process of transitioning from the highly stratified Soviet model to a more Western style of organization. Basic research and advanced development is generally undertaken by Scientific-Research Institutes, better known by their Russian acronym, NII (Nauchno-issledovatelskiy Institut). Although some NII were military organizations staffed primarily by uniformed personnel, most were civilian research organizations staffed by civilian scientists and engineers. Each industrial ministry generally has a central NII (often called a TsNII, or Central NII, in Russian) which acts as a super-NII, overseeing the development effort in an entire segment of the industry. Some examples of this include TsAGI for the aircraft industry, TsIAM for propulsion systems, TsNIIMash for ballistic missiles and space boosters, NIIBT and NIITransMash for armored vehicles and the Krylov NII for ship design.
The next step in the chain is the Experimental Design Bureau, or OKB (Opytnoe konstruktorskoye biuro). Engineering development of a concept pioneered in a NII is generally transferred to an OKB. Some industrial ministries use terms other than OKB; sometimes it is shortened as KB, Machine Design Bureau: MKB, Special Design Bureau (SKB), or Central Design Bureau (TsKB), and all these acronyms can be preceded by the prefix Gos- which means ``State.'' The OKB is responsible for the engineering development of a new weapon system, based on advanced research that might have been undertaken by a NII or other research organization. The OKB frequently has an experimental production factory attached to it which is used to produce prototypes of a new system. In the past, once the prototype was completed and the system accepted for service in the Soviet armed forces, the production was shifted to a factory (zavod) under control of one of the defense industrial ministries. The OKB had no formal control over the factories, though it often had extensive interchange with the factory during the course of a system`s production and modernization.
By the 1970s, the Soviet Ministry of Defense came to realize that the stratification of the R&D-production process had serious drawbacks, particularly the separation of the OKBs and the production facilities. A new organization was created, called the Research-Production Association (NPO, Nauchno-proizvodstvennoe obedinenie). The NPO is patterned on Western corporations. It usually consists of an OKB and one or more production facilities, and manages a weapon system's development from the engineering development stage through production and system modernization. Although the NPO concept was first authorized in 1968, by 1975 there were only 97 NPOs in the entire USSR including both civilian and defense firms. This had doubled by 1985, but the biggest jump came in the late 1980s by which time over 500 NPOs had been formed. The NPO organization is increasingly common in the missile and satellite field, but is still less common in the aircraft industry. Another version of the NPO is the PO, or production association, which lacks the NPO's RDT&E features.
In recent years, there has been considerable turmoil in the aerospace industry due to attempts at privatization and consolidation. A number of different types of consortia and partnerships have been formed in the hopes of boosting sales and streamlining the organizations. For example, the MiG design bureau is now linked with the MAPO plant; several of the surface-to-air missile bureaus have formed a Defense Systems sales consortium. To further confuse issues, there is now a controversy going on over subordination of the industry to the Russian Aerospace and Aviation Agency or to the new Ministry of Industry and Science.
Russian facilities may have a bewildering variety of names due to traditional Soviet secrecy and recent industrial reorganization. The most common names are listed although alternate spellings, acronyms, and translations are sometimes used.
Fixed-Wing and Rotary-Wing Aircraft
Russian Aviation Research Institutes--Since the 1920s, Russia's aircraft development has traditionally been guided by TsAGI (Central Aero/Hydrodynamic Research Institute, named after Professor N.E. Zhukovskiy) which is located in the formerly closed city of Zhukovskiy outside Moscow. The former Ministry of Aviation Production also has several specialized bureaus, mainly in the Moscow area, which develop key aviation technologies. These include GosNIIAS (State Research Scientific Institute of Aviation Systems) in Moscow which develops avionics; VIAM (All-Russian Institute of Aviation Materials) for advanced materials, alloys and composites; the Flight Research Institute (LII named after M.M. Gromov) which is Russia's main flight test center at Zhukovskiy/Ramenskoye; and TsIAM (Central Institute of Aviation Motors named after P.I. Baranov), the main aircraft engine center along with its associated test facilities in Lytkarino.
The majority of the Soviet Union's aircraft design bureaus were located in the Moscow area. One of the key exceptions was the Antonov Design Bureau, which is located in Kiev, Ukraine, and hence cut off from Russia since the dissolution of the USSR.
R.E. Alekseyev NPO (Central Hydrofoil Design Bureau)--The R. E. Alekseyev design bureau, located near the Krasnoye Sormovo Shipyard in Nizhni Novgorod, has been primarily involved with the design of wing-in-ground effect aircraft (WIG). These include the Orlenok (project 904), Lun (project 902), Strizh and Utka. The production facility is located at the shipyard.
Beriev Design Bureau (TANTK named after G.M. Berieva)--Since World War 2, the Beriev design bureau has been responsible for the design and manufacture of most of the USSR's flying boats. These have included the Be-12 Tchaika and Be-42 Albatross amphibians. It has also been involved in other aircraft technology efforts, including the incorporation of the Shmel radar system (developed by Vega-M NPO) into the IL-76 transport aircraft as the A-50 (Mainstay) AWACS. Beriev is currently attempting to interest the Russian government and foreign customers in its Be-40 Albatross (NATO: Mermaid) flying boat. Its Be-200 (scaled down A-40 Albatross) is being manufactured at the Irkutsk plant, usually associated with the Sukhoi Su-27 program.
Ilyushin Design Bureau--The Ilyushin design bureau has been involved in the manufacture of light bombers and civil transport aircraft since World War 2. Ilyushin is no longer heavily involved in combat aircraft design, but is now developing mainly airliners and transport aircraft. Its current products include the IL-76 Candid military transport and its derivatives such as the IL-78 Midas aerial tanker and the A-50 Mainstay AWACS. Airliner programs include the IL-86 Camber, the IL-96 wide-body airliner and the IL-114 transport. Associated production facilities include Kazan and Voronezh in Russia and Tashkent in Uzbekistan.
Kamov Design Bureau (Vertoletniy NTK named after N.I. Kamova)--The Kamov bureau in Lyubertsy, formed in 1948, is the second largest Russian helicopter design bureau. Kamov has been responsible for many of Russia's naval helicopters such as the Ka-25 Hormone, and Ka-27 Helix. It is hoping to expand its role in helicopter development following the selection of its Ka-50 (V-80) Hokum attack helicopter for a Russian army requirement. It has also designed civil helicopters such as the Ka-26, Ka-128 and the Ka-32 derivative of the Ka-27 naval helicopter.
A.I. Mikoyan Aviation NPO--The Mikoyan KB is the most famous Soviet fighter design bureau, responsible for the MiG-3, MiG-9, Mig-15 Fagot, Mig-17 Fresco, MiG-19 Farmer, MiG-21 Fishbed, MiG-23 Flogger, MiG-25 Foxbat, MiG-27 Flogger, MiG-29 Fulcrum, MiG-31 Foxhound and other aircraft. Its current efforts focus on the MiG-29SMT, MiG-31M and their derivatives. The bureau is still developing the first Russian stealth fighter, the Project 1-42/1-44, and the MiG-AT trainer. The bureau has three associated production facilities: the Moscow Aviation Production Association named after P.V. Dementyev (MAPO), Znamya Truda in Moscow (MiG-29), and the Sokol State Aviation Plant in Nizhniy Novgorod (MiG-29 and MiG-31).
Mil Design Bureau--Mil, Russia's main helicopter developer, has been responsible for the design of 95% of the former Soviet Union's helicopters including the Mi-1, Mi-2, Mi-4, Mi-8/-17 Hip, Mi-24 Hind, Mi-26 Halo and Mi-28 Havoc. The bureau is developing follow-ons to the Mi-8 Hip, the Mi-38 and Mi-40, a follow-on to the Mi-24 Hind, the Mi-28 Havoc attack helicopter, and a light utility helicopter, the Mi-34. Mil is associated with helicopter manufacturing plants at Rostov (Rosvertol: Rostov Helicopter Manufacturing Enterprise/RVPP: Mi-26, Mi-24/Mi-35), the Kazan Helicopter Production Association (KVPO: Mi-8 and Mi-17 helicopters), as well as the Moscow Helicopter Plant (MVZ named after M.L. Mil).
Myasishchev Experimental Design Bureau (OKB-1457)--The bureau was founded in 1952 to develop strategic bombers (3M Bison) but was closed in 1959 following the failure of its M-50 Bounder design. The bureau was allowed to reopen later under the auspices of the Molniya NPO and now develops specialized aircraft such as the M-55 Geofysika high altitude aircraft as well as working on space systems.
Sukhoi Design Bureau (ANPK OKB Sukhoi)--Sukhoi is the other major Russian fighter and strike aircraft design firm and is headed by Mikhail Simonov. The Sukhoi design bureau was formed in 1940. After the war, Sukhoi developed the Su-7b strike aircraft, Su-9/ Su-11 Fishpot interceptor, Su-15 Flagon interceptor, and the Su-17/Su-22 Fitter strike aircraft. Recent aircraft include the Su-24 Fencer strike aircraft, Su-25 Frogfoot strike aircraft and Su-27/ Su-35 Flanker fighter-interceptor. It is currently working on the Su-27 and its derivatives such as the Su-32FN/Su-34 strike variant, Su-33 carrier fighter, and the multirole Su-35. The S-37 forward-swept wing demonstrator, the Su-37 lightweight strike fighter, and the S-60 medium bomber are also in the early development phase. Sukhoi has been associated with production plants at Kosomolsk-na-Amur (Su-27), Ulan Ude, Tbilisi (Su-25), Novosibirsk and the Irkutsk Aviation PO (Su-27, Su-30).
Tupolev Design Bureau, OKB-116--The Tupolev design bureau is Russia's oldest aviation design bureau, having been involved in aircraft design since 1922. In the post-war years, the Tupolev design bureau has been primarily involved in strategic bomber and jet passenger aircraft design, such as the Tupolev Tu-95 Bear, Tu-22M Backfire and Tu-160 Blackjack, and the recent Tu-204 airliner. Its current efforts are aimed mainly at airliner design. Associated production facilities are at Ulyanovsk, Samara (Kuibyshev), Taganrog and Kazan.
Yakovlev Design Bureau--Yakovlev has fallen from being the largest producer of Soviet fighters in World War 2 to a relatively small development agency. It is now known primarily for specialized military aircraft including the Yak-38 Forger VTOL naval fighter and the Yak-41 Freestyle. Recent programs include the Shmel RPV, the canceled Yak-44 carrier AWACS, and Yak-130 UTS jet trainer. Associated production facilities are in Smolensk and Saratov. The Irkutsk plant is working on the Yak-112. Yakovlev's hopes are currently pinned on its new Yak-130 jet trainer design for the Russian air force requirement which was in competition with a Mikoyan design. Yakovlev has also developed a range of business jets such as the Yak-40 and light transport aircraft.
Russian Aviation Plants
Irkutsk State Aviation Plant (Nr. 39)--This plant produces the Su-27UB training aircraft and is working on the long-range Su-30 bomber. Plans to manufacture the Be-200 amphibian have also been discussed.
Kazan State Aviation Plant im. S.P.Gorbunova (Nr. 22)--This bomber plant has manufactured the Tu-22M Backfire, Tu-160 Blackjack and the Tu-204 airliner.
Kazan State Aviation Plant (Nr. 387)--The Kazan helicopter plant produces the Mi-8 and Mi-17 helicopters and is planning to produce the Mi-38.
Komsomolsk-na-Amure State Aviation Plant im. Yuri Gagarin (Nr. 126)--This plant produces the Su-27, Su-33 carrier fighter and Su-35 advanced Flanker.
Kuibyshev State Aviation Plant (Nr. 18)--Until recently, this plant manufactured the Tu-95MS strategic bomber. It now produces the Tu-154M airliner.
Kumertau State Aviation Plant--This plant in Bashkiria produces the Ka-27 and Ka-29 naval helicopters.
Moscow Aviation Production Association (MAPO) named after P.V. Dementyev (Nr. 1)--This plant produces the MiG-29, the IL-114 airliner and light aircraft.
Nizhni Novgorod Sokol State Aviation Plant (Nr. 21)--The Sokol plant is now the main Mikoyan facility and has produced the MiG-31M and MiG-29UB trainer.
Novorossisk State Aviation Plant im. Chkalova (Nr. 153)--This plant has produced the Su-24 Fencer strike aircraft and is scheduled to make the Su-34 Flanker strike aircraft and the An-38 transport.
Progress Factory im. N.I. Sazykina (Nr. 116)--Located in Arseniev, this plant produced the Mi-24 Hind attack helicopter until 1989 when it began to switch to the Kamov Ka-50. It manufactures the BM80 Moskit anti-ship missile and is also planning to produce the An-74T.
Rostov on the Don State Aviation Plant (Nr. 168)--This plant, commonly known as Rosvertol, produced the Mi-24 Hind attack helicopter until recently and is now slated to produce the Mi-28. It also produces the Mi-26 transport helicopter.
Saratov State Aviation Plant (Nr. 292)--This plant is associated with Yakovlev and has produced the Yak-38 VTOL naval fighter and now the Yak-42 business jet. It no longer produces cruise missiles.
Smolensk State Aviation Plant (Nr. 475)--This is a specialized facility and has produced the M-17 and M-55 reconnaissance aircraft as well as the Pchela UAV.
Taganrog State Aviation Plant (Nr. 86)--This plant has produced the Tu-142 Bear naval patrol bomber and the Tu-334 passenger aircraft.
Ulan Ude State Aviation Plant (Nr. 99)--This plant was the main producer of the Mi-8 helicopter and until recently produced the Su-25UB Frogfoot trainer. Current programs are the Su-25T strike aircraft and the Ka-62 helicopter.
Ulyanovsk State Aviation Plant--This plant, now called the Aviastar Joint Stock Company, was created in the early 1970s to build strategic bombers. It has manufactured the An-124 heavy transport and now manufactures the Tu-204 airliner.
Voronezh State Aviation Plant (Nr. 64)--This plant was the main manufacturer of the Tu-16 medium bomber and also manufactures unmanned aerial vehicles such as the Yastreb, Strizh and Rys. It is now working on the IL-86 and IL-96 airliners.
Propulsion
Russian Propulsion Design Institutes--The Baranov Central Institute of Aviation Engine Building (TsIAM) in Moscow is the primary Russian organization for the development of aircraft powerplants. Established in 1930, it is today involved mainly in jet engine design and testing as well as advanced powerplants, such as the current scramjet effort. Development of rocket engines is generally managed by the TsNIIMash. Some of the major jet and rocket engine design bureaus are listed below.
Energomash NPO im. V. P. Glushko; GDL-OKB; OKB-456--Located in Khimki, this bureau is derived from the pre-war Leningrad GDL-OKB (Gas Dynamics Lab-Special Design Bureau). The GDL-OKB eventually became the most successful of Soviet rocket engine design bureaus, specializing in liquid fuel rocket engines. Since the 1950s, it has been involved in rocket engine manufacture totaling some 52 different types. GDL-OKB remains in existence as the primary Russian rocket engine design facility, under the new Energomash name. Among its associated production facilities is the NII Mashinostroyenia in Nizhnaya Salda which has manufactured the RD-120 Energia rocket engine.
Isayev OKB, KB Khimmash named after A.M. Isayeva--The Design Bureau for Chemical Engineering was first established in 1943 under Aleksei M. Isayev and was closely associated with early development efforts on tactical missile rocket engines. The bureau continues to develop ramjets and rocket engines for Russian missile programs.
Khimavtomatika (Kosberg) KB--The Kosberg OKB in Voronezh has been primarily involved in the development of second and third stage engines for ballistic missiles and space boosters. Recently, it has been responsible for work on rocket engine design, including the hydrogen engine on the Energia space booster. It is associated with the Voronezh Machine Building Plant.
Klimov Design Bureau (Leningrad NPO)--The Klimov Design Bureau designs jet and gas turbine engines. It was long known as the Isotov KB, but reverted to the Klimov name in 1983. The Klimov KB has been responsible for the RD-33 on the MiG-29, and the GTD-1250 in the T-80U tank. Series production of its engines is undertaken at the Krasny Oktiabr Plant in Leningrad, the Baranov Motor PO in Omsk, and the Kaluga Motor Building PO. Kaluga is responsible for T-80 turbine engine production, as well as some aircraft engines, such as those for the IL-114 airliner. The associated Kaluga Turbine Plant PO is responsible for naval turbines and submarine propulsion.
N. Kuznetsov OKB; Trud NPO, Kuibyshev NPO--Located in Samara, the Nikolai Kuznetsov OKB has been involved in the development of jet aircraft engines and liquid fuel rocket engines for ballistic missiles. The design bureau controls the neighboring Frunze Motor Building Plant, which serves as an experimental production facility for initial series production of the missile engines. In many cases, series production takes place at the Metallist plant, also in Samara. Recent military propulsion programs include the NK-321 for the Tu-160 Blackjack bomber.
Omsk Aviation Engine Design Bureau (MKB)--This bureau was formed in 1956 to design small turbine engines for aviation applications. Its products include the GTD-1, GTD-3, GTD-5 (Kamov Ka-25 helicopter), TVD-10 (Be-30 transport), TVD-10 (Polish W-3 Sokol helicopter), TV-0-100 (Ka-126 helicopter), VGTD-43 (Tu-204).
Perm Aviadvigatel NPO (Perm Motor Building Plant im. Ya. M. Sverdlova)--This is the engine design bureau formerly called the Soloviev OKB and Shvetsov OKB. It has designed a wide range of aircraft and helicopter engines. The associated production plant also manufactures Proton first stage rocket engines as well as their aviation propulsion systems. Its current military powerplants include the D-30F6 on the MiG-31.
Polet NPO--This facility, formerly called the Omsk Aviation Plant, was previously involved in the manufacture of military and civil aircraft. It manufactured the Tu-2 bomber and Yak-9 fighters during World War 2, and the Tu-104 airliner in the postwar years. It was subsequently assigned to missile and space production, specializing in missile engines. The facility was involved in the production of the R-5 and R-12 missiles. Other products have included the RD-170, RD-211 and RD-216 rocket engines. Among its recent products have been engines used on the Energiya space booster and Buran space shuttle. It also manufactures satellites, and in 1993 began manufacturing the An-74 transport aircraft.
Rybinsk Motor-Building Design Bureau--Rybinsk has been most closely associated with VTOL-related engines such as the RD-38 on the Yak-38 Forger. Its RD-41 is currently used on the Yak-141 Freestyle. It has also developed commerical jet engines, including those for the Tu-144 Soviet SST.
Saturn Design Bureau--The Saturn design bureau, formerly known as the Lyulka KB, develops turbojet and turbofan engines for military and civil aircraft. Recent military types include the AL-21F for the Su-24 Fencer and the AL-31F for the Su-27 Flanker. Production is undertaken at a plant co-located with the the design facility.
Soyuz MKB--This bureau in Tushino traces itself back to the wartime Mikulin design bureau and the postwar NII-125. Its current efforts include the R-79V-300 vectored thrust turbofan for the Yak-41 Freestyle and RDK-300 turbofan for RPV and missile use, the R-11-300 on the MiG-21, and others. Many of its aircraft engines were built at Ufa. It has also been involved in the development of solid-fuel rocket engines for tactical missiles since 1951.
Missiles
Russian Missile Design Institutes--Missile development is more diversified in Russia than in the aircraft industry, and was split between at least three ministries mainly due to historical anomalies. The TsNIIMash (Central Scientific Research Institute of Machine Building), formerly NII-88, is the primary advanced research institute for the missile and space booster industry and serves a similar function to the TsAGI in the aviation industry; TsAGI is still heavily involved in tactical missile research (such as AAM and ASMs) manufactured by the plants of the former Ministry of Aviation Production. TsNII Tochmash is responsible for tactical Army missiles including ATGMs and tactical ballistic missiles. There are several other NIIs heavily involved in missile sub-component development including the Agat NII (radar seekers).
Two major missile design centers were lost to Russia with the dissolution of the USSR: the Yuzhmash complex (and associated Yangel design bureau) in Dnepropetrovsk, Ukraine, which was the USSR's principal ICBM manufacturer and developer, and the AiP NPO/NII-885 (now called Kharton) in Kharkov, Ukraine, which was one of the two Soviet ICBM inertial guidance development/production facilities.
Almaz NPO--Almaz, based in Moscow, is an electronics firm specializing in air defense missile system integration. It has been primarily involved in strategic air defense systems, starting with the S-75 (SA-2) and including the recent S-300P (SA-10).
Altair GosNPO--Altair is not a missile design bureau but an integrator for naval missile systems, especially air defense systems. It has been responsible for nearly every Soviet ship-mounted SAM system, and has become involved in some anti-ship missile systems as well. Its fire control radars are often manufactured at the Znamaya Truda plant in Saratov.
Antey NPO--Antey, like Almaz and Altair, is an air defense missile system integrator rather than a missile designer and is based in Moscow. Antey developed the first mobile tactical SAM, the Krug (SA-4), and its recent efforts have included the Tor (SA-15) and S-300V (SA-12).
Bazalt NPO--This development and production center is responsible for the design of Russian aircraft bombs, including cluster bombs with guided submunitions. It is also responsible for the development and manufacture of rocket propelled grenades and similar weapons. Production facilities include the Sibselmach PO in Novosibirsk.
Fakel Machine Building Design Bureau named after P.D. Grushin--Fakel in Khimki has traditionally been Russia's main developer of strategic air defense missiles since the S-75 (SA-2 Guideline), as well as exo-atmospheric ABM systems. It has often worked with Almaz, which provided the associated radars and fire control systems. Its recent designs include the S-300P (SA-10) and Tor (SA-15). Many of its missiles were produced at the Avangard MMPO in Moscow and the Leningrad Severniy Plant in St. Petersburg.
Instrument Machine Building Design Bureau (KB Priborstroyeniya/KBP)--This bureau was formed in 1962 at Tula to develop advanced weapons; Arkadiy G. Shipunov was appointed general designer in 1982. The bureau has been involved in anti-tank missiles, aircraft gun systems, laser-guided projectiles, and naval and army air defense systems. The bureau was also responsible for the development of the Drozd active tank defense system in the 1970s and 1980s. The Kovrovskiy Zavod im. V. A. Degtaryeva in Kovrov manufactures many of its designs including the 125mm Refleks guided tank projectiles, and AT-5 missiles. The AT-4 and AT-5 are also manufactured at Zlatoust. Its aircraft guns are manufactured at the neighboring Tula Machine Building Plant PO (Tulamashzavod im. V. M. Ryabikova).
KBSM Design Bureau for Special Machine Building--Located in St. Petersburg, this design bureau began the development of submarine ballistic missile launch silos in 1955, and later became Russia's primary center for the development of hardened ICBM launch silos, rail launchers for ICBMs and other specialized launch systems.
Machine Building Design Bureau (KBM)--The Machine Building Design Bureau in Kolomna, formerly headed by S.P. Nepobidimy, develops a wide range of missiles including tactical ballistic missiles (Tochka: SS-21); manportable air defense missiles (Strela-2M/SA-7; Igla/SA-16); and anti-tank missiles (Malyutka/AT-3; Shturm/AT-6; Ataka/AT-9). The Ataka missile is manufactured in Zlatoust; anti-tank and manportable SAMs at Izhevsk and Kovrov, the SS-21 is manufactured at Pavlograd in Kazakhstan. Its latest ballistic missile program is the Iskander (SS-X-26), intended to replace the obsolete Scud tactical ballistic missile.
Machine Building Design Bureau named after V.P. Makeyev--Located in Miass, the Makayev bureau is Russia's primary developer of submarine-launched ballistic missiles. It was formerly involved in the development of tactical ballistic missiles such as the Elbrus (Scud), but has largely abandoned this field to the KB Mashinostroyenie in Kolomna. The associated SLBM manufacturing plants are at Zlatoust and Krasnoyarsk.
Machine Building Scientific Production Assn. named after V.N. Chelomey (NPO Mashinstroyenie ; OKB-52)--The V.N. Chelomey design bureau in Reutov has been involved in a wide range of missile systems including anti-satellite, ICBM, ASW and anti-ship missiles, as well as reconnaissance satellite design. Past space programs included the Polet and Proton satellites, Salyut-2, -3 and -5 space stations and the Almaz remote sensing satellites. Its primary missile development efforts at the moment are oriented toward anti-ship missile design including the Bastion/Yakhont. It developed the Proton space booster, but many of its former space efforts were split off with the formation of the Khrunichev NPO in 1993.
Moscow Institute of Thermal Technology (MITT)--The Nadiradze design bureau is a spin-off from Korolev's OKB-1 in Kaliningrad specializing in solid-fuel ballistic missiles. Its most recent efforts have centered around the Topol-M (SS-27) mobile ICBM and its derivatives. Its solid fuel rocket designs have often been associated with the Biysk Chemical Plant where much of its testing is conducted. The associated missile manufacturing plant is at Votkinsk.
Novator Design Bureau--Located in Ekaterinburg (Sverdlovsk), Novator has its origins in L. Lyulev's anti-aircraft design bureau. The firm has developed naval anti-ship cruise missiles (SS-N-21 for the Alfa-class nuclear attack submarine); anti-submarine warfare missiles (SS-N-15, etc.); air defense missiles (SA-4, SA-12); and air-to-air missiles (KS-172). Its main production center is the Kalinin Machine Building Plant, which is also in Ekaterinburg.
Precision Engineering Design Bureau (kB Tochmash Nudelman OKB-16)--This Moscow design bureau is publicly known for its aircraft cannon design, but since the 1960s has been involved in missile design--including anti-tank guided missiles and air defense missiles. Its designs include the Strela-1 (SA-9) and the Strela-10 (SA-13).
Raduga Machine Building Design Bureau--Located in Dubna, Raduga is Russia's main developer of large air-to-surface missiles and large anti-ship missiles. Under Berezniak, it developed the widely used P-15 (SS-N-2 Styx). Among its recent designs is the 3M80 Moskit (SS-N-22) anti-ship missile. Its civil products include the new Burlak air-launched space booster. Many of its missiles are produced at the nearby Dubna Machine Building Plant.
Region GNPP--Region is an ordnance firm that in recent years has been involved in the development of precision guided weapons including aircraft-launched torpedoes and laser-guided bombs.
Transport Machine Building KB named after V.P. Barmin (GSKB)--Located at the former Kompressor Plant in Moscow, the former Barmin KB is the main design bureau for ICBM and space booster launch facilities and developed the launch systems for the R-7/Vostok/Soyuz and UR-500 Proton space boosters.
Uran NPO--Uran NPO is Russia's primary torpedo design bureau. It is an amalgamation of elements of TsNII Gidropribor and the Dvigatel Zavod in 1976. As in the past, the Gidropribor Institute was primarily responsible for design, while the Dvigatel Plant remains the production facility. The NPO's main test facility was located at Feodosiya on the Black Sea, but deep water tests are conducted at Kakhadka on the Pacific coast. NPO Uran works with the Lyulev and Raduga bureaus for the development of torpedo-carrying missiles.
VNIIEF (Vse-soyuzniy Nauchno-Issledovatelniy Institut Eksperimentalnoi Fiziki); (KB-11, Arzamas-16)--VNIIEF is the current name for the Soviet Union's first nuclear bomb development center. Headed by Chief Designer Yuli Khariton, the KB-11 developed the first Soviet atomic bombs, and its first thermonuclear bombs. It also developed the first nuclear warheads for missiles including the R-5M, R-7 and R-11 warheads. It is still heavily involved in nuclear weapons research.
VNIITF (Vse-soyuzniy Nauchno-Issledovatelniy Institut Tekhnicheskoi Fiziki); Chelyabinsk-70--The Chelyabinsk-70 design bureau in Kasli was set up in 1954 as the Soviet Union's second nuclear weapons development lab. Since 1954, it has been heavily involved in missile warhead development, and has been responsible for the many Soviet nuclear warhead designs.
Vympel Central Scientific Production Association--Located in Dubna, Vympel is a consolidation of several firms involved in the development of strategic defense systems including both conventional ABMs and directed energy weapons.
Vympel State Design Bureau--Located in Moscow, Vympel is Russia's primary design bureau for air-to-air missiles and has been responsible for nearly all designs since the KS-1 (AA-1 Alkali) in the 1950s. Its missiles have been produced at the Kommunar MMPP in Moscow and the Artem MMPP in Kiev, Ukraine.
Zvezda Design Bureau--Located in Kaliningrad-B near Moscow, Zvezda is Russia's primary developer of tactical air-to-surface missiles starting with the Grom (AS-7 Kerry). Its associated production facility is the Strela Production Association and their missiles are marketed by the Spetstekhnika Joint Stock Company.
Spacecraft and Launchers
Arsenal NPO--Arsenal, located in St. Petersburg, has descended from the cannon foundries created by Peter the Great in 1711. In the missile field, the design bureau developed the R-31 (SS-N-17), the first Soviet solid-fuel SLBM, and has been extensively involved in the development and manufacture of ship- and submarine-based missile launch systems. In the space field, Arsenal was involved in the development of radar and electro-optical naval surveillance satellites (RORSAT, EORSAT) as well as many satellite components used in both military and civilian applications.
Energia NPO named after S.P. Korolev--Formerly OKB-1 located in the Moscow suburb of Kaliningrad renamed Korolev in 1996, Energia is Russia's primary space booster and space systems developer. The bureau was heavily involved in early missile development, but largely turned to space products by the end of the 1960s after spinning off several missile design bureaus. It has been responsible for the R-7 booster spin-offs such as the Soyuz and Vostok, many of Russia's manned spacecraft, the Buran space shuttle and the Mir space station.
Foton Central Specialized Design Bureau (TsSKB)--The Foton design bureau was established in 1958 in Kuibyshev (Samara), and is part of the larger TsSKB in the Progress Machine Building Plant. The TsSKB was established in 1958 under the direction of M.V. Kozlov to support the OKB-1 in the manufacture of R-7 space boosters and subsequently took responsibility for their further development. The Progress Machine building plant was formerly called Aviation Plant No. 1, and it has been associated with the manufacture of R-7-derived space boosters. Today, the Foton KB is primarily involved in satellite development, including the original Zenit military reconnaissance satellites as well as current generations of spy satellites. The facility is one of the largest developers and manufacturers of military and civilian satellites, being responsible for about a third (870+) of those launched. The Progress plant has produced over 1500 R-7/Vostok/Soyuz space boosters and is now developing the Rus space booster.
Khrunichev State Space NPO--The Salyut design bureau was primarily involved in spacecraft development. Among its programs is the Kristall portion of the Mir space station. The Khrunichev plant in Fili was formerly associated with the Chelomey design bureau and was responsible for Proton space booster manufacture. In June 1993, these two Fili-based facilities were combined into a new NPO which is now developing the Angara space booster and a host of other space systems. It is currently manufacturing the Proton-KM booster.
Kometa OKB--Located in Moscow, Kometa is the primary Russian firm for the development of anti-satellite systems. It has also been involved in the development of ocean surveillance RORSATs, space-based early warning satellites, and ballistic missile launch detection satellites.
Krasnaya Zvezda NPO--This facility in Moscow has been the main contractor for nuclear space powerplants (such as the Topaz) in cooperation with the Institute of Physics and Power Engineering in Obninsk where the systems are designed.
Lavochkin NPO; OKB-577, (Babakin Research Institute)--Although best known for its WW2 fighter designs, the Lavochkin OKB at Aviation Plant No. 301 in Khmiki was switched to air defense missile development in 1948-49. Lavochkin moved into the space satellite field in the late 1950s; air defense missile programs were largely taken over by Petr Grushin (MKB Fakel). After Lavochkin's death, the bureau was taken over by Georgii N. Babakin, and was involved primarily in the development of satellites. The Babakin team was responsible for the Luna, Venera, Mars and Zond families of interplanetary satellites. In the military realm, it was involved in the development of the Oko series of early warning satellites.
Molniya NPO--Molniya NPO is an off-shoot of the Mikoyan design bureau. Although involved for a short time in air-to-air missile design (R-60/AA-8 Aphid), the bureau has been involved mainly in manned spacecraft design including the Buran space shuttle; it is associated with the Tushino Machine Building Plant.
NPO Prikladnoi Mekhaniki; NPO-PM, Reshetnev OKB--This design bureau and plant is the primary military and civilian communications satellite facility and is located in Zelenogorsk in the closed city of Krasnoyarsk-26. It has designed and manufactured a wide range of satellites including various military communication satellites, data relay, navsats, early warning, Molniya 1 and 3, Ekran, Gorizont, Glonass, Luch, and Raduga satellites. It has also developed navigation satellites (Tsikada and Glosnass) and geodesy satellites (Geoik and Etalon).
Progress OKB--This design bureau in Samara and its associated plant have been involved in the development of spacecraft, notably the Progress-type cargo spacecraft.
Military Electronics
Argon NII--Located in Moscow, the Argon NII develops on-board computers and electronic systems for aircraft, missile and spacecraft applications.
Astrofizika NPO--Astrofizika, based in Moscow, is one of Russia's largest development centers for tactical and strategic directed energy weapons, mainly lasers.
Nll Avtomatika--Nll Avtomatika and the associated NPO Avtomatika in Moscow are Russia's primary developers and manufacturers of strategic C3I equipment. These include encryption equipment for the national command authority, and strategic weapons command and control system. Avtomatika develops and produces encrypted telephones comparable to the US STU-3 system.
Briansk Elektromechanical Plant--The Briansk Electromechanical Plant manufactures a variety of vehicle-mounted electronic warfare equipment, electronics and electronics shelters, including the SPN-4 electronic jamming system mounted on the KAMAZ-4310 truck.
Elektropribor Zavod--This plant is primarily involved in the manufacture of Army and aircraft radio and communication equipment. Its radios are used on Russian strategic bombers.
Fazotron NPO--Fazotron (formerly NII Radiostroyeniya) is Russia's principal radar design bureau for fighter radars. It develops systems for both aviation and ground-based applications. Recent programs include the Zhuk radar for the MiG-29M, the Kopyo radar for the MiG-21I upgrade, and the radar on the 2S6 Tunguska air defense vehicle.
Gidropribor--Located in St. Petersburg, Gidropribor is Russia's primary development center for sonars and other anti-submarine warfare sensors. It has also been involved in the development of a variety of ASW weapons including mines.
Istok Electronics Plant--Located in Fryasino, the Istok NPO is one of Russia's largest radar and electronics development centers and is an outgrowth of NII-160. In recent years, it has also been involved in laser development. The Zaslon phased array radar on the MiG-31 was developed by Istok.
Leninets NPO--Leninets, in St. Petersburg, produces airborne radars and other radio-electronics equipment, and aircraft computers. It has been Russia's main developer of bomber radars including the Rubin on the Tu-16 and the Orion on the Su-24. It has an associated experimental plant in Gatchina.
LOMO Leningrad Optical Mechanical Enterprise--This electro-optical research center has been responsible for a wide range of surveillance devices, IR missile seekers, space cameras, electro-optical sensors and laser systems; the design center is linked to several electro-optical plants in the St. Petersburg area.
Nitel NPO--The Nizhni Novgorod Television Plant is one of Russia's main air surveillance radar development centers and production facilities and one of the largest radar plants in the world. It developed and manufactured the P-12, P-14, and P-18 radars and is now manufacturing the 55Zh6 mobile 3-D ``anti-Stealth'' air surveillance radar.
Penza Simulator Design Bureau (Era PKBM)--Penza is Russia's largest development center for civil aviation and helicopter simulator applications.
NPP Polyot --Polyot in Nizhni Novgorod is the primary Russian manufacturer of aircraft radio communications equipment including antennas, transmitters, receivers and data processing equipment. It also manufactures air traffic control centers.
Popov Plant (ZiP ANPO: Zavod named after Popova Arednoe NPO)--The Popov Plant in Nizhni Novgorod is Russia's largest aviation radio communications facility, specializing in fixed and mobile radio ground stations. Among its Army radio systems are the Kristall, Yadro-1, Yadro-2, Kashtan, R-864.
NII Priborostroeniya (NIIP)--Located in Zhukovskiy, this is one of the original Russian radar development centers. In the 1960s, it was involved in the development of the Liana radar system for the Tu-126 AWACS, and the Periskop surveillance radar system. Production work has been undertaken by the Elektromash plant, and modification work by the Gorizont KB. NIIP has also been the integrating design bureau in the development of medium range air defense missiles such as the 2K12 Kub (SA-6 Gainful), Buk-1M/Gang (SA-11 Gadfly), primarily in connection with the radar systems and guidance seekers. It is also involved in the development of aircraft weapons systems for the MiG-31 and Su-27.
Radio NPO--Established in 1953 under the Ministry of Communication, it has been involved in radio development, including space communications such as the Gorizont program.
Radiopribor NPO--This association of electronics firms (centered in Kazan, Tatarstan) includes the Sviyaga plant, Radiopribor factory and Radio Electronics Research and Scientific Institute. It develops and manufactures much of Russia's air force, ground forces and naval IFF systems, including the current 60P series.
Salyut MPO--This is the former Soviet Union's primary naval radar design bureau. It designed the early Gyuys-2 naval radar as well as most subsequent types including the current Polyma, Fregat-MA and Podberezovik types.
Skala VNIIT (All-Russian Radio Engineering Scientific Research Institute)--Located in Moscow, this is one of Russia's main radar development centers and was an outgrowth of NII-17. Among its products are the Kasta-2E2 (39N6) and Kasta-2E1 (51U6) air defense surveillance radars. This institute also develops major SAM radars, including the radars associated with the S-300 air defense system.
Urals Optical Mechanical Plant--Located in Ekaterinburg, the UOMZ is Russia's main developer and manufacturer of aircraft-based laser target designators and electro-optical sighting equipment such as the OEPS-29 and OEPS-27 IRST systems on the MiG-29 and Su-27 fighters.
Utes NPO--This design bureau and the associated Lianzovo Electromechanical Plant near Moscow have combined to form one of Russia's major developers and producers of air defense (P-37, 76N6, etc.) and air traffic control radars as well as air traffic control systems.
NPO Vega-M MNIIP (Scientific and Research Institute of Instrument Engineering)--Located in Moscow, NPO Vega-M has been involved in the development of advanced radars, including the Shmel radar system on the A-50 Mainstay AWACS, and the Sabla and Shompol radars on the MiG-25R. This NPO is affiliated with the NII-Priborstroyenie.
Vektor NPO--Located in Ekaterinburg, this amalgamation of the Ekaterinburg Elektroavtomatiki Plant and the Peleng Design Bureau develops C3I systems, military tactical computers and other advanced military electronics such as the Zoopark artillery reconnaissance system and Ulybka meteorological radar. It has developed and manufactured many of the major mobile air defense C3I systems including Senezh and Rubezh.
Zenit NPO--Located in Moscow, Zenit specializes in the development of electronic warfare countermeasures. These include ``Hot Brick'' systems such as the L-166 Ispanka on the Mi-24 and Mi-28 helicopters, as well as the Shtora-1 ATGM guidance jammer for tanks.
Photograph
Photograph: Testing a MiG-29 model in TsAGI's T-101 subsonic wind tunnel.
Photograph
Photograph: Lyulka AL-55 gas turbine engine.
JOHN FRICKER
Photograph
Photograph: Surface-to-air missiles (from top) Favorit, 9M96E2 and 9M96E.
HOWARD GETHIN
Photograph
Photograph: Leninets NPO's Khishnik phased-array radar antenna.
JOHN FRICKER
Photograph
Photograph: Krunichev's Angara core launch vehicle.
Publication title: Aviation Week & Space Technology
Volume: 154
Issue: 3
Pages: 339
Number of pages: 0
Publication year: 2001
Publication date: January 15, 2001
x38 Fulghum, David a; Wall, Robert : Navy's Hairy Buffalo Aims for Quick Kill
2001-02
Abstract:
A three-aircraft unit is the Navy's first full-fledged attempt to building "smart planes" capable of sophisticated fusion of sensor data. The goal of the program, part of which has been dubbed Hairy Buffalo, is to create a system that can quickly find moving targets on land, water or under the sea. All the services are wrestling with the need to find, identify and destroy mobile targets in less than 10 minutes. The main obstacles to meeting that timeline are delays in the decision cycle-the time needed to identify the target, to decide if it should be destroyed and to pass the target coordinates to a weapon.
Full text:
A three-aircraft unit here is the Navy's first full-fledged attempt at building ``smart planes'' capable of sophisticated fusion of sensor data. The goal of the program, part of which has been dubbed Hairy Buffalo, is to create a system that can quickly find moving targets on land, water or under the sea.
All the services are wrestling with the need to find, identify and destroy mobile targets in less than 10 min. The main obstacles to meeting that time line are delays in the decision cycle--the time needed to identify the target, to decide if it should be destroyed and to pass the target coordinates to a weapon. Focusing those capabilities in a single aircraft--that would operate autonomously but take advantage of off-board sensors--could slash the time needed to strike a target, Navy officials believe.
``We're looking at how much of that decision you can move forward [to an aircraft near the battlefield],'' said Lt. Cdr. Ronald M. Carvalho, Jr., the director of the program named Hairy Buffalo and military deputy at Naval Air Systems Command's mission sensors and systems division. ``What kind of tools and training do you have to give an individual to make him a targeteer? And once you have that data, who do you send it to and what do you send? Those are the two major issues we tackle with this aircraft. We have a lot of bandwidth and compatibility issues to solve in the Navy. [But] horizontal integration between platforms isn't necessarily there.''
Two flying testbeds have been designed and built that incorporate a common fiber-optic backbone that acts as two of the aircraft's ``central nervous systems.'' The architecture, built in collaboration with the Office of Naval Research (ONR), is designed to be easily altered by the integration of new sensors, computers, software and communications and targeting technologies--key components of next-generation airborne intelligence-gathering and targeting systems.
But fielding new combat capability quickly isn't the project's only objective. ``This aircraft is really about saving cost,'' Carvalho said. ``It's the first smart plane we've built in the U.S. Navy. It works so well that we installed a SAR/MTI [synthetic aperature radar/moving target indicator] radar in six weeks from the word `go' to actually flying it.''
For now, the focus of the three-aircraft unit is the Hairy Buffalo program. It uses an NP-3 testbed aircraft to tackle the problems of identifying and locating moving targets on the ocean's surface and ground as part of the littoral battlefield. The aircraft is designed to offer onboard fusing of sensors, communications and targeting.
The Navy's Hairy Buffalo aircraft roughly parallels the Air Force's C-135 Speckled Trout advanced-technology testbed aircraft that focuses on advanced command and control, long-range communications and futuristic sensors. A key element of both Speckled Trout and the Navy projects is the ability to move large amounts of data provided by space-based communications and other sensor systems.
Of the Navy unit's other aircraft, one is involved in antisubmarine warfare research while the other pursues additional time-critical-targeting initiatives. The three aircraft support different areas of research for the Multirole Maritime Aircraft (MMA) program. MMA is the generic term for the Navy's plan to replace the long-serving P-3 (some critics say the new program will be nothing more than new or refurbished P-3s).
ALTHOUGH HAIRY BUFFALO USES a P-3 airframe, its potential customers aren't limited to the maritime patrol fleet. Sensors demonstrated in the project are expected to feed other systems such as the Navy's E-2C airborne early warning aircraft or a replacement for the S-3 carrier-based support aircraft.
Hairy Buffalo has a number of long-term goals. It may offer a way to cheaply update the Navy's fleet of P-3 patrol aircraft and other aging airframes to lower their operating costs. Part of that effort addresses future requirements for greater data bandwidth, new types of sensors and information integration.
The project also focuses on reducing the time needed to move a project from its initial proposal to field operations. And the program has been structured to support multiple research and development projects at the same time by functioning as an airborne battle laboratory during fleet battle experiments and joint exercises. By simultaneously carrying and operating a number of projects, it can cut the cost to customers through fewer flight hours charges, cost sharing and reduced integration and support costs. To reduce redundancy, the aircraft has the ability to collect and archive multispectral data from the same target set.
FOR DOUBTERS, Hairy Buffalo modifications offer a tangible ``vision of how aircraft of tomorrow may be designed as true roll on-roll off [easy to replace]'' reconnaissance and patrol aircraft through development of an ``Information Technology Management backbone,'' said Carvalho. The open architecture system is designed to ``provide all the available data, everywhere, all the time'' from the start of a mission, he said.
Ultimately, however, Hairy Buffalo's mission is to support research in attacking moving targets--now referred to as time-critical strike--and how to rapidly transfer target data via information distribution networks. As the system matures, it is being tested as part of the Maritime Battle Center's fleet battle experiment series.
The focus on attacking relocatable targets has put Hairy Buffalo at the forefront of Navy efforts to field a ground moving target indicator (GMTI) capability. Senior Navy aviators have struggled for some time to decide where that capability should reside. Assigning the project to Hairy Buffalo has caused some consternation among other Navy project officials. For example, the P-3 and E-2C programs had their own goals of becoming the spearhead for the Navy's efforts to capture elusive targets.
The critical technology at the heart of the specialized aircraft's versatility is Lockheed Martin Aeronautics' fiber-optic bus with wavelength division multiplexing (FOBWDM). Navy officials describe the system as providing extremely high bandwidth (perhaps an upper limit of 1 terabit/sec.), at low cost, while offering a reliable and secure way to transmit light at a single wavelength. ``The growth margins are huge,'' Carvalho said. The off-the-shelf components provide an avionics backbone that allows simultaneous, non-interfering data transfers among sensors, transmitters, receivers, displays, controls, memories and processors.
Of equal interest is the fiber-optic system's ability to simultaneously transfer discrete, analog and digital transmissions that are compatible with commercial, military, FAA and special-purpose interfaces. Project members describe the system as ``future-proofed'' and scalable from a few plug-and-play nodes to several hundred using two standard 10-micron optical fibers.
AS A BENEFIT TO older aircraft, the fiber-optic system replaces two tons of very expensive wiring. That translates into greater range, speed, payload or altitude. In anticipation of the next-generation battlefield where directed energy weapons or electronic attack is likely, researchers contend that fiber optics are immune to electromagnetic interference, radio frequency interference, lightning-generated current surges, sparks, fire hazards, short circuits and cross talk between channels.
Another unique element of Hairy Buffalo is its ONR-sponsored, Northrop-Grumman-built, X-band APY-6 radar with simultaneous SAR (for picture-like images) and MTI (to locate and track low-flying and moving ground targets) capability. ``Right now we're looking at all-weather strike, and the only systems that work are SAR/MTI and ESM [electronic support measures],'' Carvalho said.
OTHER EQUIPMENT INCLUDES a real-time sensor data link, a moving target exploitation system and moving map software. A recent, highly classified Defense Science Board report has called for development of a family of modular X-band radar that can easily share data and be modified on a continuing basis.
``If you can combine the three major grids of targeting, sensors and command and control on board a single aircraft, you reduce the amount of data you have to send over communications. This is important because in over-the-horizon targeting you are going to rely on low-bandwidth communications. You send back only the data you need'' to conduct weapon launches, control a weapon, UAV or unmanned combat air vehicle in flight, or pass target data to a strike aircraft.
In a recent fleet battle experiment, the Hairy Buffalo aircraft was able to detect a possible convoy of Scud missile launchers in bad weather that thwarted electro-optical sensor-equipped aircraft and UAVs. By using SAR, Hairy Buffalo identified T-72 tanks, armored personnel carriers and antiaircraft guns and missiles moving in a convoy and plotted their hiding sites. MTI reports and SAR images were passed to a ground station.
The low-cost, four-aperture radar also used its SAR to image a P-3 on the ground after being cued to the aircraft by a rotating antenna detection mode on the radar that was able to pick up the turning props. The radar has up to 1-ft. resolution at 70 naut. mi. with a growth potential that would allow it to detect submarine periscopes. Hairy Buffalo has the capability to provide targeting data to weapon-carrying aircraft or ships. Soon, Hairy Buffalo will be able to target its own weapons systems, which could include Slam-er, Harpoon, Tomahawk cruise missile or the Harm antiradar missile. In the most recent exercise, the target identified by Hairy Buffalo was confirmed visually using a UAV, and ground forces launched a Hellfire missile to destroy it.
The exercises pointed out a number of strengths and weakness in the system, Carvalho said:
-- The current 200-deg. coverage of the radar needs to increase to 360 deg. in both SAR and MTI modes to maintain target tracks and identification. The team wants to explore antenna innovations and configurations that can be mounted in pods beneath the aircraft.
-- Automated Target Recognition algorithms need to be employed if other sensors are unavailable for target corroboration in bad weather.
-- The Moving Target Exploitation system allowed the aircraft to do its own targeting and passing of targeting messages via secure networks to other strike platforms, thereby eliminating the need for high bandwidth line of sight communications.
-- Much work is needed in validating SAR and MTI files and analyzing imagery for exploitation. Streaming of SAR imagery is impractical because it requires great bandwidth and a high degree of analysis. Onboard analysis with selected imagery and notes made by the mission commander on Hairy Buffalo was found to be more effective than by ground operators.
Scheduled next for installation on Hairy Buffalo is an ESM system to locate and identify electronic emitters on the battlefield, an over-the-horizon communications package and a passive millimeter-wave-imaging system (for precise target identification) for demonstration in the next fleet battle experiment. Data from the ESM system would be fused with the SAR/MTI data to make earlier and more accurate identifications of targets.
Photograph
Photograph: Two NP-3s are being fitted with fiber-optic backbones to permit quick-change installation of computers and sensors for finding moving objects.
DAVID A. FULGHAM/AW&ST PHOTO
Photograph
Photograph: Hairy Buffalo offers simultaneous synthetic aperture radar images and moving target indicator dots to speed target location and identification.
Subject: Research & development; R & D; Military aircraft; Design engineering; Sensors; Product testing; Avionics
Location: United States, US
Company / organization: Name: Navy-US; NAICS: 928110; SIC: 9700
Classification: 5400: Research & development; 8680: Transportation equipment industry; 9190: United States; 7500: Product planning & development
Publication title: Aviation Week & Space Technology
Volume: 154
Issue: 8
Pages: 56-57
Number of pages: 0
Publication year: 2001
Publication date: February 19, 2001
x39 Barry Watts : The Military Use of Space: A Diagnoistic Assessment
2001-02
Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (http://www.csbaonline.org), 1730 Rhode Island Avenue NW, Suite 912, Washington, D.C. 20036, 2001, 130 pages.
Directed-energy or energy-to-target weapons, by comparison, use particle or electromagnetic beams to transfer destructive energy directly to their targets.333
The amount of energy that directed-energy weapons need to deliver at the target depends on the coupling between the weapon�s energy and the target.350 Factors affecting the efficiency of this coupling include the target�s materials, configuration and orientation to the beam, as well as the type of energy transmitted. Laser energy interacts with the surface of the target, whereas highenergy particles are able to penetrate somewhat deeper.351 The material used for the target�s skin (aluminum or steel in the case of most ballistic missiles), skin thickness, coatings, any target rotation, the precise aim-point on the target (and, in the case of a missiles, whether it is under thrust or not) can all yield different effects.352 Applying laser energy to a non-burning stage of a multistage, solid-propellant missile, for instance, may be more like trying to puncture an uninflated tire, whereas the same incident energy might cause catastrophic destruction if applied to a burning stage.353 In addition, the intensity of directed-energy weapons decreases in proportion to the reciprocal of the square of the range from weapon to target. This rapid decrease in incident energy as range to the target increases tends to drive up the requirements for laser power and constellation size. The directed-energy application that has received the most funding and research has been the possibility of using laser weapons for ballistic-missile defense. According to most sources, the ability of an individual laser to concentrate energy on a target depends primarily on the size of optics.354
333 Bob Preston, May/June 2000
352 Lieutenant Colonel William H. Possel, �Lasers and Missile Defense: New Concepts for Space-based and Ground-based Laser Weapons,� Center for Strategy and Technology, Air War College, Maxwell AFB, Alabama, July 1998, Occasional Paper No. 5, pp. 12-13. In 1995, the Air Force Scientific Advisory Board estimated that effective engagement of a boost-phase ballistic missile would require about a megajoule of energy from a laser weapon�New World Vistas: Air and Space Power for the 21st Century, Major General Donald L. Lamberson (chair, Directed Energy Panel), Directed Energy Volume (Washington, DC: USAF SAB, 1995), p. 34.
353 Preston, May/June 2000.
354 New World Vistas, Lamberson, Directed Energy Volume, p. 26; also, Preston, May/June 2000.
355 Preston, May/June 2000.
x40 Fulghum, David a : New Northrop Grumman Unit Focuses on Unmanned Aircraft
2001-04
Abstract:
Northrop Grumman is aggressively moving to win a pole position in the race for development of unmanned aircraft. One of the company's unmanned reconnaissance aircraft just last week completed the first transpacific flight to Adelaide, Australia, where it will be used in military roles and to monitor illegal immigration and smuggling operations in that country's sparsely populated north. Northrop Grumman's interest has been fanned by the Pentagon's operational use of unmanned reconnaissance aircraft in the 1990-91 Persian Gulf war, Bosnia in 1995, Kosovo in 1999 and to conduct the battle damage assessment during the most recent attacks on Iraq's air defense system.
Full text:
With the prospect for new manned combat aircraft programs disappearing until about mid-century, Northrop Grumman is aggressively moving to win a pole position in the race for development of unmanned aircraft.
One of the company's unmanned reconnaissance aircraft just last week completed the first transpacific flight to Adelaide, Australia, where it will be used in military roles and to monitor illegal immigration and smuggling operations in that country's sparsely populated north.
The company has created the Unmanned Systems Strategy and Capture Team, headed by Bob Mitchell, vice president for the unmanned system business. Mitchell was a key official in Teledyne Ryan's development of the long-endurance, high-altitude Global Hawk UAV that is now a Northrop Grumman product. Through other recent acquisitions, the company has established a technology base in almost every key area associated with UAVs and the even newer area of unmanned combat aircraft.
Northrop Grumman's interest has been fanned by the Pentagon's operational use of unmanned reconnaissance aircraft in the 1990-91 Persian Gulf war, Bosnia in 1995, Kosovo in 1999 and to conduct battle damage assessment during the most recent attacks on Iraq's air defense system. The company also has been encouraged by the Navy's renewed interest in unmanned reconnaissance and strike aircraft that can operate from aircraft carriers. Moreover, the major aerospace contractors have, in addition, been scrapping over some classified programs, at least one of which involves unmanned combat air vehicles small enough to be launched from fighter-size aircraft.
``Now everybody wants part of the action,'' Mitchell said. ``It's a good growth business, and Ralph Crosby, [president of the Integrated Systems Sector], has put together a team from across Northrop Grumman. Its members are looking at the entire range of possibilities.''
But company planners are also aware that it's easy to waste money, so they are looking hard at where to invest. To rationalize the process, they've developed a matrix of verified requirements and cross-referenced them with the degree to which they are funded. ``Global Hawk, for example, is in the top right corner [because it's nearing operational status] and wild ideas in the bottom left,'' Mitchell said.
One other factor will drive their efforts. Company officials have decided that there is no longer any public tolerance of failure. Trial and error, while effective, won't let a program survive the politically charged, image-critical budget process. ``We're changing our thought process'' and allotting more time for the periods before flight tests. The miniature air-launched decoy program (Mald), for example, will go through a new, 3-4 month risk-reduction program before its next flight to ensure a basic, robust platform and to nail down a key ``silver-bullet requirement'' for the first 100 vehicles. In addition, the company has built what it claims is the first unmanned tactical aircraft with dual redundant, high-reliability architecture--the Vertical Takeoff and Landing Tactical UAV (VTUAV). If an actuator fails, for example, another takes over.
``Given the limited [defense] budget and cost of today's systems, we can't afford to lose them because of reliability problems,'' Mitchell said. ``We want them to offer the same reliability as manned commercial and military aircraft. We believe we've done that on Global Hawk, but across the integrated [military] service sector, we need to go to higher levels of redundancy.''
The Pentagon is currently looking for new sensor capabilities that are small and low-cost. So Northrop Grumman is evaluating at signals intelligence payloads, decoys that can improve UAV survival and low-cost sensors to prepare for an anticipated growth in demand for UAVs. ``We're doing a lot of studies, and there are a lot of programs on the horizon,'' Mitchell said. Unmentioned, but a palpable presence, is the need for a stealthy, long-range, long-endurance UAV--a larger, more robust version of the now-canceled Lockheed-Martin/Boeing Dark Star. Other opportunities might be presented by the cancellation of the new extended-range cruise missile and delays in the replacement for the aging conventional air-launched cruise missile. Finally, Northrop Grumman and other UAV competitors are looking at putting weapons on unmanned aircraft. Planners see weaponization as a ``clear and logical step'' and predict it may offer the right platform for directed energy weapons, such as lasers.
``It takes a long time to get platforms into service, so we're looking for derivatives of existing [UAV platforms],'' Mitchell said
Northrop Grumman's current programs include Global Hawk, VTUAV and Mald.
The Global Hawk carries a synthetic aperture radar, but is being readied for the addition of a moving target indicator. To test its long-range capabilities in anticipation of a deployment to Australia, the aircraft have been flown to the Equator in the Pacific Ocean and back to Edwards AFB, Calif. Europeans, in particular the Germans, are interested in something being referred to as the Eurohawk which would use some Global Hawk capabilities with a European-built sensor.
Northrop Grumman also is looking at UAVs for the Navy's Broad Area Maritime Surveillance (Bams) program. The plan is to use unmanned reconnaissance aircraft--possibly employing major components of Global Hawk--to increase the capability of a relatively small number of manned patrol aircraft.
The helicopter-based VTUAV offers an operational capability at a speed of 150 kt. and at altitudes up to 20,000 ft. The program went through final design review last week, a critical step before low-rate production. The program suffered a crash of the first unmanned demonstrator and is currently about a month behind, but on track for initial operational capability. The manned P-2 demonstrator is flying daily (a total of about 60 flights so far) to complete fatigue certification.
The next unmanned demonstrator, P-3, will fly late in the program after continued risk-reduction efforts. It is being built at the same time as the first two development UAVs for the Navy. First flight could come as early as December. It will then fly in full operational configuration with the Tactical Control System in February, which marks the start of developmental flights.
THE SMALLER, far cheaper Mald is not dual redundant to keep down cost. So to improve reliability, researchers are going back through every element of the system to confirm and refine its operation. Moreover, the company tests the vehicle and confirms performance parameters by keeping the missile on the launch aircraft for the whole mission. It provides all the test data, but avoids the damage and losses involved with parachute recovery.
Free flight begins in May-June. Both jamming and cruise missile interceptor versions of the missile are planned. And a bit further afield, planners are toying with the idea of putting brilliant antitank (BAT) submunition warheads and sensors on a Mald airframe for precision strike missions.
Photograph Photograph: Reconnaissance and intelligence gathering are the first big roles for unmanned aircraft, but soon weapon-firing variants (Pegasus demonstrator left) will be added to the U.S. military arsenal.
Subject: Military aircraft; Remote control; Weapons; Market strategy
Location: United States, US
Company / organization: Name: Northrop Grumman Corp; Ticker: NOC; NAICS: 336411
Classification: 8680: Transportation equipment industry; 9190: United States; 7000: Marketing
Title: New Northrop Grumman Unit Focuses on Unmanned Aircraft
Publication title: Aviation Week & Space Technology
Volume: 154
Issue: 18
Pages: 76-77
Number of pages: 0
Publication year: 2001
Publication date: April 30, 2001
x41 Fulghum, David a : Pentagon Reveals Mobile Pain Ray
2001-05
Abstract
Directed-energy weapons, including lasers and high-power microwave devices, continue to trickle out of the Pentagon's classified research and development programs, and the latest, a joint project by the Marine Corps and Air Force, is a nonlethal, millimeter-wave, antipersonnel ray. The 10-year, $40-million program was developed to this point with no obvious funding in the defense budget nor with any reference in Pentagon literature about nonlethal weapons development.
Full Text
Directed-energy weapons, including lasers and high-power microwave devices, continue to trickle out of the Pentagon's classified research and development programs, and the latest, a joint project by the Marine Corps and Air Force, is a nonlethal, millimeter-wave, antipersonnel ray.
The 10-year, $40-million program was developed to this point with no obvious funding in the defense budget nor with any reference in Pentagon literature about nonlethal weapons development. Critics of such weapons, who worry about health effects, say the program was purposefully kept ``black or nicely hidden'' to escape public scrutiny for a decade.
With antimissile, antiaircraft and computer-frying directed-energy emitters already being turned into weapons by the U.S., officials in the joint program say they intend this Raytheon-built, millimeter-wave (MMW) energy projector to be used for controlling crowds or perhaps driving off an approaching infantry force with bursts of intensely painful rays. A likely tactical scenario would be to swivel rays of short-pulse, 95-GHz. energy like a fire hose across a group of people to inflict sharp stings on the skin, even through clothing.
Many of the technical details are classified, but the Marine Corps admittedly wants the device to work at ranges of more than half a mile, beyond the effective range of small arms. The beam would be defocused to reduce power and the possibility of permanent damage. Contractors include Raytheon, Communications and Power Industries and Veridian Engineering.
Any effects, researchers contend, are harmless and immediately reversible. They predict at least two factors will help ensure there are no lasting effects. To keep the beam from inflicting burns or damaging eyes, it is limited in power and endurance. They also are convinced that a human's natural inclination--``the repel effect''--will be to escape the pain by running away or closing the eyes.
The directed-energy ray at the point of exposure causes moisture in the outer layer of skin to heat to a temperature high enough that it stings the surrounding tissue like a drop of scalding water. The ray penetrates less than 1/64 in. However, as was demonstrated on those attending the device's first public display, the sting immediately stops when bare skin is moved out of the ray.
Only one person was injured during tests of the millimeter-wave-frequency demonstrator. The test system was once accidentally programmed for an exposure far too long, and the subject suffered a small burn that healed normally, said Kirk Hackett, who leads the high-energy research facility which develops and tests high-power microwave weapons technology for the Air Force Research Laboratory, Kirtland AFB, N.M. Most of the 6,500 test exposures for the ray ranged from 3-10 sec. These tests were the first to expose a person's full body to the energy beam.
Such a weapon would be useful in urban conflicts and where collateral damage is a primary concern, said Marine Corps Col. George Fenton, director of the joint nonlethal weapons office. The Marine's vehicle-mounted active denial system is to be mounted on a Humvee light truck, if the Pentagon gives approval for weaponization of the program. Power would be provided by a turbo-alternator and battery system, Hackett said. Acquisition of the technology is to be taken over by USAF's electronic systems center this summer.
Air Force researchers are openly working on the long-range airborne laser as an antimissile weapon and, in a series of classified programs, are working on an array of high-power microwave and laser weapons and sensors. Laser sensors are in particular demand because they can produce detailed images of targets, even to the point of determining the materials they are made from. HPM weapons are valued because they can be used to scramble computer memories and otherwise disable computers that control key battlefield command and communications capabilities.
The Air Force, cosponsor of the project, has other targets in mind for high-power microwave weapons. Researchers want to put such directed-energy weapons on unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and perhaps the Joint Strike Fighter to burn up the electronics of key devices, including vehicle ignitions, as part of a combination computer attack and information warfare campaign. The British also are developing HPM weapons for use on UAVs and to be fired by artillery.
However, to shift from an antipersonnel weapon to a device that damages electronic circuitry requires far different applications of the technology. The frequency of the weapon would have to shift much lower, from 95 GHz. to around 1 GHz., the peak power of the beam would have to increase dramatically and it would have to be powerful enough for use at longer ranges. For example, to survive ground fire, even unmanned aircraft have to operate at an altitude of at least 15,000 ft.
Researchers say they have made technological breakthroughs on power supplies to run such weapons even when mounted on vehicles or aircraft. Batteries, generators and devices driven by shafts attached to the aircraft's engine would be expected to supply the necessary power. Operational planners say the UAV is the most likely candidate for HPM weapons since it can get closer to targets without endangering air crews.
Word count: 839
Aviation Week & Space Technology 154.19 (May 7, 2001): 82-83.
Copyright 2001 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
x42 Fulghum, David a. : Laser Can Foil SAMs, Air-to-Air Missiles
2001-05
Abstract (summary)
A new infrared countermeasures system, designed to protect large aircraft like the C-17 from heat-seeking missiles, has for the first time successfully used a laser to scan the inner workings and outer shape of an attacking weapon, precisely identify it and, finally, provide the correct jamming signal to lead it off course. This breakthrough gives visibility to a larger trend, say senior aerospace planners. They believe air-to-air and antiaircraft missiles are a mature technology, about to be left in the dust by rapidly advancing directed energy weapons. The first successful live-fire test of the Laser Infrared countermeasures Flyout Experiment, a $30-million cooperative effort by the Air Force Research Laboratory at Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio, and Lockheed Martin in Akron, Ohio, was completed earlier this year at White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico.
Full Text
A new infrared countermeasures system, designed to protect large aircraft like the C-17 from heat-seeking missiles, has for the first time successfully used a laser to scan the inner workings and outer shape of an attacking weapon, precisely identify it and, finally, provide the correct jamming signal to lead it off course.
This breakthrough gives visibility to a larger trend, say senior aerospace planners. They believe air-to-air and antiaircraft missiles are a mature technology, about to be left in the dust by rapidly advancing directed energy weapons (DEW). Greater profitability will come from directed energy weapons, as missile development flattens. ``The major companies already realize that the future belongs to DEW,'' an aerospace official said. To reflect this conviction, they have been quietly forming divisions dedicated to directed-energy work.
The first successful live-fire test of the Laser Infrared countermeasures Flyout Experiment (Life), a $30-million cooperative effort by the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) at Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio, and Lockheed Martin in Akron, Ohio, was completed earlier this year at White Sands Missile Range, N.M. In its mature form, the system will use a multiband laser to identify an approaching weapon by the sensor it carries and other characteristics. A closed-loop infrared countermeasures (CLIRCM) capability enables the system to assess the characteristics of an incoming missile and then return a complex synchronized jam code. That causes the missile to make a high-g turn away from the aircraft (to chase a cluster of false targets), break lock and miss by a great distance. The system phases the generation of false targets so that the incoming missile tracks away in one direction.
Older open-loop, laser-based self-defense systems produce random false targets that make the missile wobble in flight, but not necessarily break lock on the target.
``The missile's guidance loop is degraded, but not destroyed,'' said an Air Force researcher. ``The result of [such] suboptimal jamming is that [the threat missile] is wandering around still trying to reacquire the target. It doesn't result in large miss distances. But if [CLIRCM] can drive the missile off efficiently in one direction, the total time to jam is a lot less [as little as 3-4 sec.].'' Total engagement time is reduced, and the defensive system is free to move quickly to the next antiaircraft missile.
The Life tests employed shoulder-launched surface-to-air missiles (SAMs) fired at a specially designed carrier suspended from a cable between two mountaintops, said John Wojnar, Lockheed Martin's director of advanced programs business development.
The Life advanced technology demonstration is to conduct a second set of live missile firing tests this summer, using both air-to-air missiles and SAMs. These will be followed by captive carry tests on a C-17 in 2002. The technology will then be shifted to Wright-Patterson AFB as a potential upgrade to the Large Aircraft IRCM system.
The Pentagon has the immediate problem of proliferating infrared antiaircraft and air-to-air weapons. While its researchers have produced effective defenses against radar-guided missiles, the ability to defeat infrared missiles has not been as effective. Aircraft like the C-17 produce huge heat signatures. As a result, they are threatened by the hundreds of thousands of cheap, very mobile SA-14/-16/-18-type missiles on the world market that could be operated clandestinely within a few miles of an airfield. About half of the aircraft lost in combat over the last two decades have been to heat-seeking missiles, said James Eichorn, Lockheed Martin's Life program manager. Because the U.S. has been so effective in foiling radar-guided missiles, foreign manufacturers are modifying their radar missiles with electro-optical and infrared sensors to avoid detection.
The new technology is expected to aid in the development of future self-defense systems for both manned and unmanned aircraft. While the AFRL/Lockheed Martin Life system is designed to react only to missiles already in the air, more futuristic systems will try to find threats, and damage or destroy them before they are launched.
WHILE NOT PART of the Life program, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has launched several programs to design and test key laser-based IR countermeasures (IRCM) components. Two--named Medusa and Steered Agile Beam--focus on conformal optical arrays for high-performance aircraft that neither disturb aerodynamic flow, which creates drag, nor increase the aircraft's radar signature. It would shift infrared countermeasures systems away from ponderous, electro-optical turrets, thereby reducing cost, weight, space and reaction time. Both programs explore the utility of these arrays for the Joint Strike Fighter, F-22 or even the visionary unmanned air combat vehicle (UCAV). The latter is to rely heavily on autonomous, closed-loop systems to identify the target.
Earlier this month, in associated work, AFRL's directed energy directorate at Kirtland AFB, N.M., awarded $23 million for a five-year Aircraft Directed-Energy Laser Applications (Adela) program to develop and test an antiaircraft missile defense system by 2004. Textron received $13 million to design, develop and test lasers and laser beam controls. Raytheon was given $4.5 million to integrate plans for field testing at its Tucson, Ariz., facility. ITT Industries was awarded $4.5 million to conduct laser effects experiments against advanced antiaircraft missiles. Applied Research Corp. of Atlanta received $1 million to develop and revise missile computer models.
The Life testbed now being demonstrated is made up of five basic components, parts of which will be upgraded as testing progresses:
-- A two-color IR missile warning sensor and processor for wide-area (90 X 90 deg.) missile detection that cues the system that the aircraft is under attack. ``They went to two color to ensure the wide-field-of-view warning sensor could detect missile launches in a cluttered environment and not be plagued by large numbers of false alarms,'' said Bill Taylor, technical adviser for the AFRL's electro-optical warfare branch. The two-color system allows the missile plume to be distinguished spectrally from the solar glints and clutter. The Life system also has a reduced detection threshold which makes it better able to see faint, fleeting targets.
-- A fine-track, narrow field-of-view camera that uses a very sensitive, cooled 512 X 512-pixel infrared focal plane array to track the missile after cueing by the missile warning sensor. After tracking the missile passively, the system shifts to an active laser mode performing functions somewhat like a laser radar.
-- A laser-specific gimbal that provides very precise pointing of the laser while tracking the incoming missile to keep the beam consistently on the target. Laser energy is transmitted in a very narrow beam allowing a finer focus of jamming power. High-power lasers are usually associated with heavy weight, so lower power, narrow-beam lasers are preferred. The smaller the gimbal, the less mass there is to move, therefore the system responds quicker.
-- The current multiwatt mid-IR laser will be replaced with a more capable device built by BAE Systems for jamming bands 1, 2 and 4. It is expected to be available for tests during the next year. It will operate in multiple wavelengths to ensure it won't be fooled by countermeasures. Earlier laser systems keyed on a missile's engine plume and used a laser beam wide enough to encompass the plume and the missile's sensor. But a wider beam width means there is less total jamming power applied to the sensor aperture.
-- And a closed-loop IRCM signal processor with a countermeasure effectiveness assessment capability. Today, all the IR countermeasure systems are open loop, which means they only transmit. A closed-loop system like Lockheed Martin's both transmits and receives laser signals. It uses the laser in a radar-like function as the heart of a closed-loop operation capable of defending against a variety of missiles.
Like many other new weapons and sensors, a key technology for Life is an on-board processor capable of performing billions of operations per second. Such speed is critical given a SAM's flight time of a few seconds when aircraft are at low altitude. Life's processors hold detailed algorithms for threat identification ``that allows us to point out the exact jam code instead of a generic [jamming signal that may not work in time],'' an Air Force official said. Earlier defensive systems would simply run through a series of jam codes, hoping to get to the right one before the missile struck. It is important that the complex scan patterns of modern infrared missiles be synchronized with the jam code. Gathering such data is difficult since a number of countries have made their own unique changes to SAM weaponry, making them hard to jam.
THERE ARE FUTURE antiaircraft weapons that will be even tougher to defeat. For example, new missiles like Israel's Python 4 air-to-air missile and Japan's Keiko SAM have sensor components that don't spin or roll. These movements within the seeker heads made it possible to identify older sensors and figure out appropriate defensive measures.
``Imaging seekers on next-generation SAMs could make everyone's life hard,'' said Eichorn. ``There's no unique characteristics to work on.'' Life's modestly powered laser confuses, but doesn't damage the enemy seeker. In 10-15 years, when SAMs are further improved, more powerful lasers will be introduced in follow-on systems that can damage or destroy a seeker head.
The massive computing power of the new Lockheed Martin Life defensive system allows it to prioritize missiles that have targeted the aircraft. Often shoulder-fired SAMs are launched in pairs to improve the possibility of a kill. The system judges which missile will reach it first, directs the laser to the most immediate threat, modulates it correctly for a quick break lock, fires, notifies the pilot that the threat is gone and then shifts to the next most-pressing concern. The system works autonomously, leaving the aircrew to focus on its primary missions.
``These initial tests demonstrated a major breakthrough . . . and paves the way toward incorporation of the techniques and technologies . . . into next-generation aircraft,'' said Mark Wunderlich, the AFRL Life program manager.
In the future, analysts envision a three-layered self-protection system for aircraft against IR missiles. The first layer would keep enemy missiles on the launch rail by using lasers to damage or destroy the IR trackers at a SAM site. The second layer would be a system similar to Life that jams missiles in flight. The third layer of defense may involve use of antimissile missiles small enough to be fired from flare dispensers. The weapons would be designed to kill even antiaircraft missiles with multimode seekers that operate outside the IR portion of the electromagnetic spectrum.
Photograph
Photograph: Detailed CLIRCM algorithms analyze laser returns and select the precise jamming code that will put the missile into a high-g turn.
Word count: 1752
Copyright 2001 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
Aviation Week & Space Technology 154.21 (May 21, 2001): 43-44.
Publication date
May 21, 2001
x43 Wall, Robert : DSTO Eyes Lead Role In Niche R&D Areas
2001-05
Abstract (summary)
Operating with limited funding, Australia's military research organization has opted to concentrate on a few areas of expertise, rather than pursuing projects across a broad technology spectrum. Aerospace-related research work is one of the largest funding areas, receiving about 22% of the money. Another high-priority mission area is command, control, computers, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, which receives about 23% of DSTO's money. To help stretch its research dollars, DSTO often looks for cooperative programs.
Full Text
Operating with limited funding, Australia's military research organization has opted to concentrate on a few areas of expertise, rather than pursuing projects across a broad technology spectrum.
The Defense Science and Technology Organization has an annual budget of about $110 million. While that level may increase in the near future as a result of last year's defense white paper, it is not expected to drastically shift the scope of work DSTO undertakes.
``Science and technology features quite strongly in the white paper,'' said Norbert Burman, research leader at DSTO's energetic materials and terminal effects weapons systems division. The overriding goal is staying consistent, though, trying to be ``world leaders in some niche areas.''
Aerospace-related work is one of the largest funding areas, receiving about 22% of the money. Another high-priority mission area is command, control, computers, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, which receives about 23% of DSTO's money. A lot of the funding goes into research projects associated with maintaining and improving existing weapon systems. Truly long-term, enabling research draws about 11% of R&D funding. DSTO's budget is supplemented occasionally by the military services, which may pay for work that particularly interests them.
IN MANY AREAS where Australia can't afford massive research efforts, it is trying to keep scientists involved to maintain at least a knowledge base of what capabilities may exist. One example is the growing field of directed-energy weapons. Pursuing that kind of work would require ``huge amounts of money'' that Australia doesn't have, said David Graham, the air force scientific adviser who acts as a liaison between the Royal Australian Air Force and DSTO. ``We're just keeping a watch on technology'' with an eye toward protecting against those threats, he said.
Similarly, military space research is seen as largely unaffordable. ``We are just starting small,'' Graham said.
But that doesn't mean that all emerging fields are being shunted aside. Information warfare, for instance, has attracted substantial interest here, and not just the defensive side. The RAAF has established an information attack squadron that will work with DSTO to support the entire Australian Defense Force. Members of the unit will be dispersed throughout the force, Graham said.
To help stretch its research dollars, DSTO often looks for cooperative programs. France is one of the countries most actively involved--both Thales and EADS' French arm are working in Australia. French firms are much more active than U.S. or U.K. entities, noted William H. Schofield, director of DSTO's aeronautical and maritime research laboratory.
Nevertheless, there are some high-profile efforts undertaken cooperatively with both the U.S. and U.K, in many cases using Australia's massive Woomera test range. For instance, the U.K. brought a Tornado to Australia to test its Alarm antiradiation missile, said officials at the RAAF's Aircraft R&D Unit (ARDU). Talks are now underway to do something similar with the Storm Shadow air-launched cruise missile. Moreover, the U.S. Air Force is considering testing its Jassm cruise missile in Australia--a weapon the RAAF itself is planning to buy.
To limit the amount of work the ARDU has to do, engineers here try to exploit flight test information conducted in other countries. For instance, U.S. tests of the Amraam air-to-air missile off the F/A-18 allowed Australia to proceed immediately into its operational evaluation of the system rather than duplicate test activities.
One of the largest cooperative efforts is being undertaken with Canada, to conduct in-depth structural testing of the F/A-18. The goal of the International Follow-on Structural Testing Project (Ifost) is to determine what the true life of the airframe is, rather than the design life advertised by Boeing, said Schofield. Aft fuselage testing by DSTO is aimed mainly at determining the structural impact of the F/A-18's severe buffet at high angle of attack. DSTO instrumented a flying F/A-18 to determine exactly what loads are being experienced, and now is duplicating them to within 5% in the test rig, said project manager Loris Molent.
According to DSTO estimates, research so far has revealed that the aircraft fatigue life is 25% greater than expected, which amounts to a savings of about $700 million. The test itself cost $50 million, Schofield said.
An area where Australia has long been at the forefront is composite patch repair. The use of these patches has now proliferated to other countries, but researchers are still looking for improvements. The latest development, ``smart'' patches, feature embedded electronics to monitor the difference in the strains experienced by the patch and the underlying structure, to provide data on whether a hidden crack is growing. That information would be retrieved using a wireless computer interrogation system, said project manager Alan Baker. The goal is to conduct an inflight demonstration using an F/A-18 soon.
HUMAN FACTORS RESEARCH also attracts substantial DSTO attention. For instance, the organization is working on a three-dimensional audio cueing system to signal pilots where threats are located. Using information from on-board sensors, such as the radar warning receiver, the sound of a missile launching or flying by is projected into the pilot's headset in a way that represents spatially where the event occurred.
Tests comparing a simple audio signal with a three-dimensional one showed that the time it took a pilot to find the threat was reduced to about 4 sec. from an average of 16 sec., said Ken McAnally, a researcher on the project. Also, because cockpits are relatively voice-dense environments, engineers opted for sounds that represent the type of threat being experienced, rather than adding another voice. For instance, antiaircraft artillery is depicted using a gun sound, while a missile launch is represented by the sound of an arrow being fired.
In addition to its R&D activity, DSTO plays a significant role in Australia's operational concept development, acquisition activities and strategic planning. Schofield noted that the organization supported the defense white paper process. On the acquisition support side, it acts as ``the technology watchdog'' to ensure the systems are delivered as promised.
The Wedgetail airborne early warning system is one of the largest undertakings in that arena. It represents one of the rare cases in which Australia is the lead customer for a system. To monitor progress, DSTO has dispatched engineers to systems integrator and 737 supplier Boeing and radar manufacturer Northrop Grumman. Furthermore, Wedgetail employment tactics also will be devised with significant DSTO help.
Photograph
Photograph: DSTO is providing extensive technical and acquisition support and oversight for the acquisition of the Wedgetail airborne early warning system.
Word count: 1068
Copyright 2001 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
Publication title: Aviation Week & Space Technology
Volume 154
Issue 22
Pages 51-52
Publication year
2001
Publication date
May 28, 2001
x44 Israeli Air Force will continue to add UAVs to its arsenal
2001-06
Abstract:
MAKEOVER: Responding to the demands of limited conflict scenarios, the Israeli Air Force will continue to add more unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to its aircraft arsenal, Israeli ambassador to the U.S. David Ivry says.
Full text:
MAKEOVER: Responding to the demands of limited conflict scenarios, the Israeli Air Force will continue to add more unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to its aircraft arsenal, Israeli ambassador to the U.S. David Ivry says. The UAVs could be used in a variety of ways, including for reconnaissance, carrying weapons, and using directed energy weapons against opponents. "Directed energy is one of the issues I think should be looked at very seriously because in a limited conflict ... - because you'll be judged by how many civilian casualties you'll have - directed energy and non-lethal weapon system are going to have major (importance)," Ivry says. "There is a change of ratio, no doubt about it," he says, referring to the increase of unmanned aircraft in relation to manned aircraft.
People: Ivry, David
Publication title: Aerospace Daily
Volume: 198
Issue: 50
Pages: 2
Number of pages: 0
Publication year: 2001
Publication date: Jun 11, 2001
x45 Mann, Paul : Aldridge Puts Infotech At Top of Priority List
2001-06
Abstract (summary)
The Pentagon's new leadership intends to seek incremental spending increases for defense science and technology programs that combined would receive about $8 billion a year versus the current $7 billion plus, backed by a special fund to speed the transition of new weapons technologies into the field. Information technology, space systems anddirected energy weapons, particularly lasers, will be the top priorities of the Pentagon's new acquisition and technology czar, Edward C. Aldridge.
Full Text
The Pentagon's new leadership intends to seek incremental spending increases for defense science and technology programs that combined would receive about $8 billion a year versus the current $7 billion plus, backed by a special fund to speed the transition of new weapons technologies into the field.
Information technology, space systems and directed energy weapons, particularly lasers, will be the top priorities of the Pentagon's new acquisition and technology czar, Edward C. Aldridge, who took over his post in late May. In addition, a Pentagon working group is formulating a Hypersonics Technology Plan, intended to result in a whole new range of hypersonic airbreathing aircraft, engines and weapons.
Other technologies high on the list of Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld's civilian lieutenants include radiation-
hardened electronics (in support of fuller U.S. dominance of space), detection and destruction of deeply buried targets, nanoscience, embedded computing, novel composites and cognitive engineering to improve psychological warfare operations.
TESTIFYING BEFORE a Senate panel last week, Aldridge recommended that Pentagon dollars for science and technology (S&T) programs receive 2.5-3% of the total annual defense budget, which is just over $300 billion.
That percentage is consistent with private sector industries that conduct long-range research, like pharmaceuticals, according to Aldridge and Delores M. Etter, acting director of defense research and engineering and deputy undersecretary of Defense for science and technology. They appeared jointly before the Senate Armed Services subcommittee on emerging threats and capabilities, whose new chairwoman, Sen. Mary L. Landrieu (D-La.), succeeded Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) last week when Democrats took over majority control of the Senate.
Aldridge declined to specify projected dollar amounts for defense S&T until the Pentagon completes its strategic review. Based on current figures, the 2.5-3% level he proffered would result in an annual S&T budget in the neighborhood of $8 billion, some $800 million above current levels. The Pentagon is spending around $1 billion this year for basic research, about $3 billion for applied research and roughly $3 billion for advanced technology development. They total just over $7 billion. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa) gets about $90 million for basic research in the broad areas Aldridge favors, like the Next Generation Internet and computing/communications systems.
Etter's office is studying the best way to administer a ``transition opportunity fund,'' backed by Landrieu and Roberts, to rank order those technologies that should be made available the soonest to the services. Senators want to insulate the fund from the vagaries of the annual budget process, to encourage faster insertion of new technologies into weapons procurement, and thence to the field. Landrieu said concepts like the transition fund are essential if Congress and the Pentagon are ``to stop robbing'' the S&T budget to pay for readiness expenses, a deeply entrenched budgetary habit.
In effect, the technology transition fund would build on the existing Advanced Concept Technology Demonstrations (ACTD) program. Kicked off in 1994, it brings theater commander influence directly to bear on the acquisition process. The program is an integral part of Darpa.
Etter admonished, however, that the technology opportunity fund is by no means ``a silver bullet''--nor is there one, she stated. The transitioning of technologies into procurement has to be judged from revolving perspectives among a host of programs. ``We also think there are ways to change the funding process for ACTD,'' to accelerate the transition of demonstrated technologies into procurement.
Aldridge endorsed the concept of ``spiral development'' or ``spiral acquisition,'' a catchphrase for bringing emerging technologies onstream more efficiently in prolonged acquisitions, which sometimes stretch out to 10 or 15 years or more for major programs. Spiral development is aimed particularly at software. ``Problems attributed to software remain a significant contributor to program cost, schedule and performance shortfalls,'' Aldridge and Etter told the subcommittee.
Etter also had cautionary words about the system of ``technology readiness levels'' the Pentagon is adopting, to give weapons program managers a clearer understanding of how much risk they will assume if they adopt a given technology. This too is part of the Pentagon's effort to accelerate technology transition.
The difficulty is resources, Etter said: first, the time and effort involved in making the technology readiness evaluations themselves; second, the uncertainty of whether additional funding would be available to finance greater risk reduction in the S&T phase of acquisition.
Aldridge agreed the Pentagon would have to boost money spent on a ``trail'' of demonstrations to assure weapons program managers of the reliability and usefulness of technological capabilities coming from defense laboratories and universities. ``We could do a better job'' of funding, he conceded, saying the 2.5-3% S&T level he recommends would be enough.
Etter emphasized the importance of applying the technology readiness ratings consistently across the services, and of keeping tabs on software as well as hardware.
Turning to electronics, Etter said that although the private sector can meet many of the military's needs, it cannot meet them all. She cited the particular importance of Pentagon funding of radiation-hardened electronics ``as we make the move into space, [because] this is an area where there is not a commercial market.''
The Defense Dept. has two fabrication lines for ``radhard'' electronics, but they are about two-and-a-half generations behind the private sector and the gap should be shortened to one generation, Etter said.
The Defense Science Board urged last year that the Pentagon boost and reorganize S&T funding (AW&ST Oct. 16, 2000, p. 28). Numerous studies have deplored the shrinkage of defense S&T, including the S&T workforce. The 28,500 scientists and engineers employed today at the Pentagon's 84 laboratories and research and development centers represent a 42% drop in manpower since 1990, according to Etter's figures. Aldridge gave priority to revitalizing the acquisition workforce, a cause also topping the agenda of a House government reform panel (AW&ST May 28, p. 33).
Asked what he would do if the basic research budget were doubled, Aldridge immediately cited infotech, both information assurance and information warfare. Assurance means ``we can operate in ways that an adversary cannot disrupt.'' Info-warfare superiority is essential ``because in a conflict, the ability to deny information is something that adds more to deterrence that anything [else] on my list.'' He ranked space systems second, on grounds they are instrumental in every form of targeting.
The new acquisition czar affirmed he had directed procurement chiefs and research directors to stop relying on the independent research and development (IR&D) funds of defense contractors when the Pentagon underfunds given programs. The crackdown is intended to encourage industry to do more research of its own.
There are exceptions to the rule, Aldridge said, pointing to the evolving expendable launch vehicle as a good example of the kind of undertaking the Pentagon and the private sector could justifiably cofinance. But he declared flatly that the Defense Dept. engaged in ``an unhealthy practice'' when it pressured defense companies to use their own IR&D funds or even their profits ``to help us through transition periods at'' the Pentagon.
Photograph
Photograph: Sen. Mary L. Landrieu (D-La.), head of Senate emerging threats panel.
Photograph
Photograph: Edward C. Aldridge, new Pentagon acquisition and technology czar.
Word count: 1177
Copyright 2001 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
Aviation Week & Space Technology 154.24 (June 11, 2001): 46-47.
x46 Mann, Paul : Defense Reform Stresses Speed, Agility, Jointness
2001-06
Abstract (summary)
Embracing Clausewitz's precept that no conquest can be carried out too quickly, the Bush team's national military transformation plan hinges on a global joint response force whose essences if obliterative speed, agility, precision strike and logistical economy. If the transformation blueprint becomes policy, the joint response force would be schooled, armed and trained to fight conflicts of all kinds and sizes.
Full Text
Embracing Clausewitz's precept that no conquest can be carried out too quickly, the Bush team's notional military transformation plan hinges on a global joint response force whose essence is obliterative speed, agility, precision strike and logistical economy.
In a breaking crisis, the all-purpose, joint rapid-reaction force, patterned after Air Force and Marine expeditionary units, would be ready to commence operations within 24 hr., able to establish control within 96 hr. and equipped to secure ``decisive resolution'' within 30 days (AW&ST Feb. 26, p. 24).
IF THE TRANSFORMATION blueprint becomes policy, the joint response force would be schooled, armed and trained to fight conflicts of all kinds and sizes, endowed with an ambidextrous capability the Pentagon calls ``full-spectrum dominance.''
The desire for compressed action reflects not only classical precepts of speed, shock and precision, but also the political assumption that the American public will not accept prolonged conflict and high casualties.
No new forces would be involved in setting up the joint response force. The object is to reorganize, retrain and reequip existing forces so that they can operate far more jointly than they have up to now. Jointness would be institutionalized, so that it is reflexive in the military services.
What would be novel is a standing joint command and control system to encourage such institutionalization. It would be deployable in as little as 24 hr., designed to assure that all elements of the joint response force share all situational knowledge. It is intended to provide more parallel, continuous and seamless operations.
No technological breakthroughs are needed to equip the joint response force, according to the transformation study, released by the Pentagon last week and conducted by a federal research center, the Institute for Defense Analysis. Air Force Gen. (ret.) James P. McCarthy led the project.
Steering clear of Buck Rogers-style concepts, the plan puts a premium on faster application of existing technologies, on a shorter logistics tail and on lower operations and support costs.
Faster technology application would be encouraged by a ``Transformation Discretionary Fund'' of up to $500 million at the disposal of the secretary of Defense, starting in Fiscal 2002. This is analogous to a ``transition opportunity fund,'' under study by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, that would encourage faster insertion of new technologies into the stream of weapons procurement (AW&ST June 11, p. 46).
The McCarthy study endorses an array of weapons in support of the proposed joint response force, although any go-ahead awaits the nod of Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, in concert with the White House. The wish list includes:
-- Accelerating Navy fielding of the Joint Strike Fighter. No deadline was specified, but McCarthy urged that fielding take place as rapidly as possible, perhaps two or three years earlier than the currently planned 2010-12. The study made no recommendation on taking money from the F/A-18 or any other program to speed JSF.
-- Enlarging the carriage capacity of the existing 21 B-2s (to deploy up to 324 small-diameter bombs each) and B-52 bombers.
-- Speeding Global Hawk deployment.
-- Funding the evolving expendable launch vehicle.
-- Bolstering research and development for microsatellites, directed-energy weapons, stealth and counterstealth technologies, space maneuvering vehicles, robotics, offensive and defensive information warfare and chemical and biological warfare defenses.
-- Shoring up information network security, sensor integration and information management.
-- Merging the communications links for intelligence and operations, ensuring that all sensor inputs reach operational commanders rapidly.
-- Conversion of four Trident submarines to cruise missile carriers.
-- Conversion of nuclear-tipped air-launched cruise missiles to conventional ALCMs.
-- Developing a stealthy, joint long-range cruise missile and a new long-range precision strike capability. The latter would be a B-2 follow-on, available well before 2017, either manned or unmanned, possibly a space vehicle or a cruise missile carrier.
The McCarthy plan drew high praise from a senior Reagan-era defense official, Lawrence Korb, who said, ``It makes a great deal of sense and it moves exactly in the right direction. I'm a big fan of the Joint Strike Fighter, and jointness is something we've been doing, but on an ad hoc basis. It's time to institutionalize it'' (AW&ST Apr. 10, 2000, p. 27).
But it is going to be hard for President Bush to find enough money to carry out the program in full, Korb predicted. Given what the President advocated during the campaign, the military should have been a much higher priority than the Administration's $1.3-trillion tax cut, in Korb's view. Fiscally, Bush ``has no wiggle room at all. The great irony is that for 2002 he can put up an extra $20 billion [for defense] without eating into the surplus, but after that, in 2003 and 2004, it goes away. If the economy doesn't snap out of it, the surplus will be going away even more.''
European defense ministries may not react well either, says Kori Schake, an authority on NATO affairs with the Institute for National Security Studies at National Defense University. ``I don't think there will be much reaction from European political leaders, but European defense establishments will probably be alarmed, for two reasons. First, [the plan] demonstrates the growing divergence of the U.S. and European militaries, because the Europeans are not spending the kind of money that will allow them to continue to adapt in the way the U.S. military plans to. Second, they will be concerned about the diminishing American interest in Europe and the kinds of lower-end problems in the military spectrum [as in the Balkans] that are dominating the thinking and planning'' in Europe.
Photograph
Photograph: If the military transformation blueprint becomes policy, the B-2 bomber would be equipped with hundreds of small-diameter bombs.
RANDY JOLLY
Word count: 944
Copyright 2001 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
Indexing (details)
Cite
Subject
Armed forces;
Military policy
Location
United States, US
Classification
9190: United States
9550: Public sector
Title
Defense Reform Stresses Speed, Agility, Jointness
Author
Mann, Paul
Publication title
Aviation Week & Space Technology
Volume
154
Issue
25
Pages
72-77
Number of pages
0
Publication year
2001
Publication date
June 18, 2001
Aviation Week & Space Technology 154.25 (June 18, 2001): 72-77.
x47 Army ramping up directed energy weapons for land, air, and space
2001-07
Abstract (summary)
THEL is a deuterium fluoride chemical laser operating at a power level of hundreds of kilowatts. The complete system involves a beam director, a command and control shelter, and a radar. THEL is an Advanced Concept Technology Demonstration (ACTD).
When completed, the ABL aircraft will carry COIL (chemical oxygen iodine laser) on its nose. COIL is a megawatt-class laser equivalent to 100,000 100-watt light bulbs, and is capable of destroying boost- phase missiles by targeting their fuel tanks. COIL was first developed by Philips Lab at Kirtland Air Force Base in the mid- 1970s.
"Once we have that, we have three lasers that actually operate through the main optical system," explained [James Forrest]. These lasers include two solid state lasers, a track-illuminating laser, and a beacon-illuminating laser.
Full Text
Several new directed energy systems are being developed by the services, in conjunction with the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization (BMDO), that will use powerful laser energy to destroy missile targets from land, air, and even space.
To address the threat of short-range missiles on the ground, the Army is currently working jointly with Israel on the THEL (Tactical High-Energy Laser) program.
Israel is interested in eventually using THEL to protect its northern border against potential rocket attacks by terrorists.
THEL is a deuterium fluoride chemical laser operating at a power level of hundreds of kilowatts. The complete system involves a beam director, a command and control shelter, and a radar. THEL is an Advanced Concept Technology Demonstration (ACTD).
The most recent test of THEL was a limited operational capability test in which the crew, consisting of two people, didn't know where the launch was going to originate.
The system is largely automated and doesn't require a tremendous amount of technical expertise to operate, according to Richard Bradshaw, program manager for the Directed Energy Technology Program Office at the Army's Space and Missile Defense Technical Center.
"You could almost take anybody in here, and probably in an hour, teach them how to operate the system," Bradshaw said at a missile defense conference here.
So far, THEL has shot down 23 rockets. More tests are scheduled for this summer, according to Bradshaw.
THEL has been tested against Katyusha rockets, which are approximately 3.5 meters long and 122 millimeters in diameter. Katyusha rockets did considerable damage to American bases during the Vietnam War, according to Bradshaw.
For the time being, Israel has elected not to employ THEL because it is not mobile. However, the current system is being used as a test bed for a future mobile THEL system.
"The Israelis would be happy with a [system that fit in] a tractor- trailer," said Bradshaw. He said the goal of the mobile THEL development program is to eventually build a system capable of being transported in a C-130 cargo aircraft.
The Airborne Laser
Later this year, the Boeing Company will roll out an extensively modified 747-400 cargo aircraft that will serve as the platform for the Airborne Laser (ABL) program.
ABL is the air component of BMDO's boost-phase missile defense program, and is intended to address the proliferation of short-range missiles, according to Deputy Program Director Col. James Forrest.
The system would be the first layer of defense in BMDO's planned "multi-layered" missile defense system.
"If we can't attack the missile, we can pass that information on and be backed up," said Forrest.
When completed, the ABL aircraft will carry COIL (chemical oxygen iodine laser) on its nose. COIL is a megawatt-class laser equivalent to 100,000 100-watt light bulbs, and is capable of destroying boost- phase missiles by targeting their fuel tanks. COIL was first developed by Philips Lab at Kirtland Air Force Base in the mid- 1970s.
Infrared sensors placed around the outside of the ABL aircraft provide 360-degree coverage to detect missile launches. A modified LANTIRN pod on the top of the aircraft provides the range to the target, as well as cueing to the battle management system.
"Once we have that, we have three lasers that actually operate through the main optical system," explained Forrest. These lasers include two solid state lasers, a track-illuminating laser, and a beacon-illuminating laser.
The track-illuminating laser finds the nose of the target, while other sensors locate the plume of the missile, thus allowing the system to calculate the missile's total length. This calculation then allows the system to determine precisely where to hit the missile.
The beacon-illuminating laser helps allow for atmospheric compensation. "We actually condition the beam to compensate for the optical turbulence in the atmosphere," he said.
Boeing's modifications to the basic 747 airframe constitute the most extensive modification to an aircraft the company has ever carried out, Forrest said.
Flight testing of the first aircraft, without the laser aboard, is scheduled to begin next February.
The first lethal test of the ABL system is currently scheduled for 2003. It will involve "putting six laser modules on a 747, and that'll be sufficient power for us to shoot down a SCUD-like missile in 2003," Forrest said.
The eventual operational configuration will involve 14 laser modules on each of a fleet of seven aircraft.
Since the laser cannot operate through clouds, the plane will loiter in a figure-eight pattern, at 38,500 feet, waiting for missiles to appear.
Each aircraft will carry enough laser fuel to destroy 20 short- range missiles at distances of more than 200 miles.
Lockheed Martin is providing the beam control/fire control system.
TRW is developing the laser module itself.
Space-based laser
Further in the future, another solution to intercepting missiles in their boost phase could be the Space-based Laser program - a system of orbiting satellites capable of destroying ballistic missile- class targets from space.
The seed for this future system is the Integrated Flight Experiment (IFX), which is scheduled to culminate in a launch in 2012. Based on data from IFX, a potential operational space-based laser system could be in operation by 2020, according to Program Director Col. William McCasland.
However, McCasland emphasized, "we're in a concept exploration phase.
There just isn't a firm plan at all." By 2007, the completed IFX hardware will undergo integrated testing in a new facility at Stennis Space Center. The facility will be capable of simulating a vacuum environment in which to test the unit. This vacuum environment must be preserved even when nine or 10 pounds of laser reactant are being expelled into it every second.
The centerpiece of the system is the Alpha laser - a megawatt- class hydrogen fluoride laser.
Since IFX will not result in a system actually capable of destroying non-cooperative targets, it can be developed in compliance with the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, McCasland said.
The requirement to comply with ABM represents "guidance that we inherited from the last Administration, and so far this Administration hasn't changed that at all," McCasland said.
The Air Force is currently the executing agent for the program. By 2002, the funding for the program will be shifted entirely to BMDO.
- Jefferson Morris (jeff_morris@AviationNow.com) Copyright 2001 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
6 7/19/2001 Article:185210 Missile defense push won't mean
nuclear arms cut, Gen. Welch says The nation's nuclear arsenal can
shrink further while still remaining a deterrent, but the Bush Administration's push for a missile defense system won't accelerate that process anytime soon, retired Air Force Gen.
Larry Welch said July 18.
The missile defense system being proposed would initally be able to handle only a few incoming warheads by hitting each one with multiple kill vehicles, he said, which he described as a high "exchange ratio." "To give up offensive missiles for this capability ... we may have to address that trade-off" in the future, he said, but not for at least a decade.
Welch, the former Air Force chief of staff, helmed a review panel that concluded in 1998 that the National Missile Defense program was being rushed and did not include enough testing.
Missile defense officials have now requested a 57 percent increase for their programs and have mapped out a much more rigorous testing schedule. Welch said the program now is in line with what his panel recommended.
"I think the Administration has become very much more realistic in terms of expectations," Welch said.
Word count: 1237
Copyright 2001 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
Publication title
Aerospace Daily
Volume
199
Issue
77
Pages
3
Number of pages
0
Publication year
2001
Publication date
Jul 19, 2001
x48 Mann, Paul : Strategy Called Crucial To Missile Defense Plans
2001-07
Abstract (summary)
A calculated strategy should govern the structure and components of a US missile defense, including a reformulation of the relationship between offense and defense and a fresh understanding of the meaning of deterrence, security experts say. They urge the Pentagon to steer clear of easy assumptions about intercepting a handful of enemy warheads with 100 or so ballistic missile defense interceptors. Instead, planners should pinpoint which missile-wielding countries to attempt to deter, how to deter them and over what period of time. Under the Bush Administration's notional framework, offensive forces would be reduced, even as missile defenses are deployed. Intrinsic to the Administration's formulation is an inverse relationship between offense and defense; numerically, one goes down as the other goes up. But military experts say the issue is capabilities, not numbers.
Full Text
A calculated strategy should govern the structure and components of a U.S. missile defense, including a reformulation of the relationship between offense and defense and a fresh understanding of the meaning of deterrence, security experts say.
They urge the Pentagon to steer clear of easy assumptions about intercepting a handful of enemy warheads with 100 or so ballistic missile defense interceptors. Instead, planners should pinpoint which missile-wielding countries to attempt to deter, how to deter them and over what period of time.
Under the Bush Administration's notional framework, offensive forces would be reduced, even as missile defenses are deployed. Intrinsic to the Administration's formulation is an inverse relationship between offense and defense; numerically, one goes down as the other goes up.
But military experts say the issue is capabilities, not numbers. ``There is a naive and mistaken belief that the `nuclear danger' is directly proportional to the number of nuclear weapons and, accordingly, lower is inevitably better,'' observes Adm. Richard W. Mies, commander-in-chief of U.S. Strategic Command. But as strategic forces have shrunk in the post-Cold War period, numbers alone and numerical parity with other countries matter less and less, in his view.
The deterrence issues that are coming to the fore are openness about a given nation's forces, the irreversibility of offensive reductions, production capacity (that would permit an offensive surge), aggregate warhead inventories and verifiability (catching cheaters).
In other words, Mies says, the character and posture of U.S. forces--command and control, survivability and reliability--are becoming more important than sheer numbers to maintaining deterrence, and hence strategic stability.
He posits, for example, that in the information age, the U.S. triad is a de facto ``quadrad,'' the fourth leg comprising intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance functions (ISR) carried out by strategic command, control, communications and computer systems (C4). Thus, deterrence starts, not with missile forces, but with intelligence. ``This `fourth leg' provides the enablers that make the other three legs an effective deterrent and warfighting force.''
As the offensive/defensive balance is rethought in technological terms, so it must be reinterpreted in geostrategic ones, says M. Elaine Bunn of National Defense University. A strategy designed to build partnerships with Russia and China will produce a different combination of U.S. offensive and defensive forces than a strategy focused mainly on threats to the U.S. homeland posed by the terrorist use of nuclear, chemical or biological weapons of mass destruction (WMD). A strategy that assumes the rise of a peer competitor as the main threat would contour U.S. forces differently than one based on WMD.
Writing in a National Defense University analysis of strategic options for the Pentagon's quadrennial defense review, Bunn says the two sides of the deterrence equation must account not only for pariah states--the threat emphasized the most by the Clinton and Bush Pentagons in advocating first-stage, limited missile defenses--but also for the alternative courses of the great powers.
Will Russia and China be allies, associates or antagonists of the U.S.? What will Moscow and Beijing be to each other, strategically, and for how long? How will their relationship affect Washington's defense posture? What are the strategic implications of each outcome?
Also relevant are the intentions of third-party nuclear states like India, Pakistan and Israel. What tributary effects might their actions have on a new U.S. offensive/defensive equation?
That equation should take account of a host of variables. ``The potential interconnections must be understood in order to develop a comprehensive approach to nuclear deterrence and missile defenses,'' said Bunn, who was previously principal director for nuclear forces and missile defense policy within the office of the assistant secretary of Defense for strategy and threat reduction.
Strategic choices antecedent to an antimissile system should reconcile or at least rationalize the divergent goals of U.S. deterrence, in Bunn's view. At the moment, pariah states are the driver of U.S. ballistic missile defense. The driver of America's nuclear forces remains Russia and its offensive missiles, inherited from the ex-Soviet Union.
The nature and potency of these drivers will change over time. Anticipating that, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has embraced a multipurpose ``layered deterrence'' and layered missile defense that could deal with multidimensional threats.
For the time being, the Bush Administration is keeping its strategic and missile defense options open. The White House and the Kremlin agreed at the recent Genoa summit to conduct strategic arms talks that address offense and defense together.
Uncertainty surrounds what kind of missile defense to deploy. ``We are not sure we know what the answer is,'' said the Pentagon's acquisition chief, Edward C. Aldridge, Jr. (AW&ST July 2, p. 37).
Imponderables include the hard task of predicting how soon any missile defense scheme adopted now, and fielded across a decade or more, will become outmoded. Technological development usually speeds ahead of weapons deployment.
If current assessments are close to correct, the proliferation threat of tomorrow will throw missiles into eclipse. Lasers and other directed energy weapons (DEW) will be the next proliferation challenge, predicts Strategic Paradigms 2025, a detailed estimate of future security developments by the Institute for Foreign Policy analysis, a Tufts University think tank. Conceivably, DEW may someday render missiles and missile defenses obsolete.
At least a few states are likely to have ground-based lasers with antisatellite capabilities by 2025, the Tufts study forecasts, although by that time the U.S. probably will have airborne and seaborne lasers that few other nations will possess, except as prototypes.
By 2050, however, ``directed energy weapons will likely have proliferated to additional powers and possibly even to some non-state actors.'' Toward the end of this century, 2070-80, DEW ``could be regular fixtures in the arsenals of most regional militaries,'' the Tufts report stated.
``I do believe you're only going to have effective missile defense with DEW, but we're decades away from that,'' agreed Joseph Cirincione of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. ``We've advanced somewhat in the past 15 years in adaptive optics, power supply and beam propagation, but I think we're decades away from weaponization.''
Interactions among states and among their strategic forces can be seen as a set of interconnected gears, says Bunn. How the U.S. deals with one country or set of countries on nuclear issues and missile defense affects perceptions of, and relationships with, other nations. Unintended consequences can result. These need to be anticipated in weighing alternative missile defense schemes.
In itself, the system of ``gears''--offensive and defensive missile arsenals, deployed by multiple nation states--is patently obvious. But it is less clear how far and in which direction the ``gears'' will turn, as Bunn puts it.
One variable is the impact of U.S. missile defense deployment on the pace of Chinese
nuclear force modernization. In response, China might multiply its long-range missiles or warheads or both. It could build more survivable missile bases, in the form of hardened silos and mobile platforms.
How far might Beijing go in response to U.S. missile defense deployment, and how far would it go in any event? Bunn asks. Would China wind up with about the same net nuclear capability with or without U.S. missile defense? Does that matter?
How might India and Pakistan respond to the U.S., and how would their reactions affect U.S. (and Chinese and Russian) interests and strategic forces?
Even more fundamental than this system of ``gears'' are assumptions about how offensive and defensive forces affect each other. One common belief is that the relationship between them is direct. Therefore, deployment of missile defenses will necessarily trigger offensive warhead buildups by other nations.
But strategic forces could just as easily be based on the opposite assumption: that offense and defense are driven by different factors and that there is no ineluctable relationship between them. A missile defense force could be custom tailored to the rogue threat, while strategic nuclear forces would be sized independently to a potentially friendly or hostile Russia or China.
Alternatively, Bunn points out, strategic weapons could be regarded as a unitary force that combines offensive and defensive components. Their combined number in a single, but mixed force could be capped at a certain level by treaty, which would require states to cut their offensive component automatically if they chose to increase the defensive one, or vice versa. Presidents George W. Bush and Vladimir V. Putin may have had something like this in mind during their talks in Genoa.
Bunn's gear metaphor assumes that interaction between offense and defense is a given, but that it is nonlinear and unpredictable. According to this school of thought, no single logic can define the mix of, or tradeoffs between, offense and defense because the reputed cause-and-effect dynamic between them is indeterminate.
Thus, it is commonly assumed that U.S. deployment of ballistic missile defense will trigger offensive warhead buildups by other nations. But it might not. Other governments could choose to accentuate their focus on U.S. weaknesses. They might build up their capacity for diplomatic blackmail--another form of deterrence--with the threat of covert WMD assaults, employing chemical or biological agents to wreak mass urban terror.
It is that kind of uncertainty that underpins Rumsfeld's ``layered deterrence.'' In a recent Wall Street Journal guest editorial, he stated, ``Just as we intend to build `layered defenses' to deal with missile threats at different stages, we also need a strategy of `layered deterrence' that can deal with a variety of emerging threats at different stages.''
Outside analysts see Rumsfeld's idea as a variation on a past concept, ``selective retaliation.'' In Cold War times, it was a step back from the theoretical all-out, preemptive nuclear first strike that some strategists considered indispensable if the U.S. were to deter a full-scale Soviet first strike.
More discriminating than an all-out attack, selective retaliation might be used if an adversary fired unconventional (chemical or biological) weapons at U.S. targets. Instead of responding with total nuclear annihilation or with the leveling of the enemy's capital city, the U.S. could use highly lethal, but nonnuclear weapons to destroy the other side's chemical and biological stockpiles, research capabilities, missile stores or nuclear assets, if any.
``WHEN WE TALK of deterrence today, it no longer means just nuclear deterrence, because precision bombing gives us the option of destroying very important assets without resorting to nuclear weapons,'' said the veteran strategic analyst, Edward Luttwak. In the post-Cold War world, potential U.S adversaries have far less capability than the Soviet Union did in its heyday. At the same time, conventional weapons have become much more accurate and deadly.
Luttwak said the inevitable operational logic of layered, nonnuclear deterrence is the purchase of many thousands more precision-guided munitions, which the Pentagon ran short of in the 1999 Kosovo air war. ``We've been moving into the post-nuclear era for many years now, nuclear weapons are receding in their useful purpose and we badly need layered deterrence, which means spending less on platforms and bases. I believe that one thrust of the Rumsfeld effort is to shift money from other things to [precision-guided] weapons, because pre-Rumsfeld, service plans for replenishments were pretty modest.''
LIKE CIRINCIONE, Luttwak regards effective missile defense as a relatively distant prospect, and therefore unlikely to drain funds from the budget for precision arms.
Major weapons that take a long time to deploy require persistent advocacy across many administrations, by a military service for whom the capability is a core mission, Luttwak points out. ``That's the real reason we've never had ballistic missile defense before. Service advocacy didn't exist then, and it doesn't exist now. I see no sign of serious spending on missile defense for some years to come. Left to themselves, the services will spend all the money on platforms, not weapons. But I believe Rumsfeld is determined to avoid that.''
Illustration
Illustration: Map: Because missile threats vary in range and exist all over the globe, the Pentagon advocates ``layered deterrence'' and layered defenses to deal with divergent risks.
Word count: 1971
Aviation Week & Space Technology 155.5 (July 30, 2001): 56-58.
x49 Mann, Paul : House Raps Wolfowitz On Military Budgeting
2001-07
Abstract (summary)
In a bipartisan rebuff, the Republican and Democrat leaders of the House Budget Committee admonished Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz last week that the Pentagon is being less than forthcoming about the magnitude of the spending increases it will request in January for Fiscal 2003 and succeeding years. Lawmakers doubt that the Pentagon and federal revenues, diminished by a $1.3-trillion tax cut and a listless economy, will sustain the kind of $18.4-billion defense add-on the Administration seeks for Fiscal 2002 alone. Lawmakers are also displeased with the pace of Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld's highly publicized strategic review, which was supposed to be finished this month, but will slip into the fourth quarter
Full Text
The Republican-controlled House has forewarned the Pentagon against budget-busting in Fiscal 2003-07, declaring that Social Security and Medicare are absolutely untouchable and will not be raided to pay for major defense hikes.
In a bipartisan rebuff, the Republican and Democrat leaders of the House Budget Committee admonished Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz last week that the Pentagon is being less than forthcoming about the magnitude of the spending increases it will request in January for Fiscal 2003 and succeeding years.
Lawmakers doubt that the Pentagon and federal revenues, diminished by a $1.3-trillion tax cut and a listless economy, will sustain the kind of $18.4-billion defense add-on the Administration seeks for Fiscal 2002 alone, beginning Oct. 1. That level is almost $4 billion higher than the $14.5-billion defense boost sanctioned in the 2002 budget resolution that Congress passed in May.
The committee also questions whether the $18.4-billion add-on, even if approved by Congress in full, will actually provide a down payment on military transformation, as the Pentagon claims. Most of the money is earmarked for pay increases, housing and readiness, not the brisk modernization that military transformation would require, lawmakers say.
Wolfowitz parried that the problems inherited from the Clinton Administration were far larger than expected. Hence the need for the pending $5.5-billion defense supplemental and an $18.4-billion add-on next year.
But the committee chairman, Rep. James A. Nussle (R-Iowa), was not persuaded. It is difficult to believe the ``defense mess'' in health care, spare parts and infrastructure was not known ``until you walked in the front door or Mr. Rumsfeld walked in the front door,'' he retorted. ``These are things that are constantly under review by the colonels and others throughout the ranks. If it's taken this long to find out what the problem is, it's going to be very difficult to fix it in the so-called second stage of the [Pentagon's] strategic review.''
Despite Wolfowitz's firm pledge to stop underfunding spares and flying hours, and to call a halt to supplemental budget bills, the committee doubts that $18.4 billion will be enough to avoid another supplemental next year, like the one being wrapped up in Congress now (see p. 25). ``We've added roughly $2 billion to the readiness and training accounts so that we won't be coming up here next year asking for more in the middle of the year,'' Wolfowitz insisted.
LAWMAKERS ARE ALSO DISPLEASED with the pace of Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld's highly publicized strategic review, which was supposed to be finished this month, but will slip into the fourth quarter. The findings are now to be folded into the congressionally mandated and coincidental Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR). Pentagon leaders drew criticism for failing to keep legislators abreast of the review timetable.
Above all, however, House budgeteers are emphatic about the exceedingly tough defense choices that lie ahead, not just in 2003, but throughout the President's first term. If the U.S. economy lurches into recession, the budget pinch might grow tighter still in the wake of the recent 10-year, $1.3-trillion federal tax cut, they caution. The White House contends the tax cut will stimulate new economic growth, and shore up federal tax revenues.
``Based on what we've seen so far,'' Nussle demurred, it is an open question whether the Fiscal 2003 defense request, due early next year, will be on time and accurate enough to finance transformation.
Regarding the $18.4 billion sought for 2002, Nussle complained that the bulk of it would defray backlogs and immediate expenses. To his mind, the request leaves the impression that the Pentagon has retreated again into ``its culture of funding the defense of the past.''
Citing the proposal to slash 30 aircraft from the B-1 bomber fleet as a perfect example, the Republican chairman charged that the Defense Dept. has spent the first six months of the Bush Administration looking backward instead of forward. With little regard for the merits, Congress shoots down such proposals almost immediately, Nussle admonished, because the Pentagon fails to consult with lawmakers beforehand about rationale, strategy and savings. The B-1 drawdown option should have flowed from, not preceded, the strategic review and QDR.
The committee's ranking Democrat, Rep. John M. Spratt, Jr., (S.C.), is equally skeptical of where the Administration is headed on defense. ``We thought transformation was going to be digitization, new stealthy technologies and leap-ahead technologies'' like directed energy weapons, Spratt told Wolfowitz. ``When I look for transformation, I go straight to the science and technology account; that's where your really fundamental leap-ahead technology gets funded. This year we're spending $9 billion on science and technology, and your budget asks for $8.8 billion. It cuts it $200 million.''
Wolfowitz responded that some of the funds had been added by Congress ``in its wisdom,'' and were not aimed precisely at military needs. He admitted, however, that ``we'd like to do better on the science and technology budget, there's no argument about that. Our research and development overall is up $7 billion.''
It is up $6.4 billion, Spratt corrected, and although that is a substantial improvement it puts no weapons in the field. ``While you increase the R&D accounts by $6.4 billion, you cut the procurement account by $500 million. Now, if you don't have the money in the procurement account proportional to the increase in the R&D account, you can't [deploy] these new weapons that you're researching and developing. And you've got some significant procurement commitments coming down the pike--the F-22, Joint Strike Fighter, more C-17s.''
There is a little more money for digitization and a little more money for directed energy technology under the Bush plan, Spratt acknowledged. But the $18.4-billion add-on is ``mostly meat and potatoes,'' he said, and it cannot possibly fund the kind of top-to-bottom transformation the White House seeks to begin.
WOLFOWITZ SUGGESTED the Administration may shrink the size of the armed forces and close more bases. Spratt rejected that assumption, noting that base shutdowns produce only a few billion dollars in savings.
``I can't tell you with precision, [but] we need more; I think that's clear,'' Wolfowitz replied. ``We'll have to find some ways to pay for it, and some of that has to come from efficiencies in what we're doing. If we could find 5% savings in our overall budget, that would pay for a heck of a lot of transformation.''
Spratt was unmoved. ``You said in your testimony that you thought 3.5% of GDP [gross domestic product) was not an unreasonable amount of money to expect for defense. That would be $380 billion. The secretary [Rumsfeld] indicated in his testimony that he would need $347 billion in '03, as a follow-up to the $330 billion he's asking for '02.''
Wolfowitz affirmed that $347 billion was ``in the ballpark'' for Fiscal 2003. He added: ``We really frankly do have ambitious hopes that with our new management structure, [and] our new service secretaries, with their searching look in the QDR process, we will come up with some significant ways to pay for transformation out of places where we are spending money today that we don't need to.''
Nevertheless, Spratt and Nussle sought to impress upon Wolfowitz in the strongest terms that Congress would not start ``down the slippery slope'' of dipping into federal trust funds to pay for a major peacetime military buildup.
``Number one,'' Nussle snapped smartly, ``this Congress will protect 100% of Social Security and Medicare, period--no speculation, no supposition, no projections.''
Photograph
Photograph: Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz
Word count: 1245
Aviation Week & Space Technology 155.3 (July 16, 2001): 28-30+.
x50 Wall, Robert : Killing Missiles At the Speed of Light
2001-08
Abstract (summary)
After more than 20 years of research, US military officials believe they are on the verge of demonstrating the ability to destroy a boosting ballistic missile using a high-power laser. The Pentagon is betting heavily on directed-energy weapons because the timelines for a boost-phase intercept kill are extremely short. With less than 5 min. of boost time of the target, using a missile to catch it is a daunting problem. The Airborne Laser (ABL), the largest program among all boost-phase intercept efforts next fiscal year, is also the one with the most research and development behind it. The Air Force plans to begin flight tests of the laser on a modified 747-400 freighter early next year. Pentagon officials are particularly drawn to a space-based system because a large enough constellation would provide permanent global coverage, while ABL or most of the Pentagon's other boost-phase intercept systems would have to be deployed and positioned precisely to carry out their mission.
Full Text
Translate [unavailable for this document]
After more than 20 years of research, U.S. military officials believe they are on the verge of demonstrating the ability to destroy a boosting ballistic missile using a high-power laser.
The Pentagon is betting heavily on directed-energy weapons because the timelines for a boost-phase intercept kill are extremely short. With less than 5 min. of boost time of the target, using a missile to catch it is a daunting problem.
``The speed of light cuts down that [time] rather tremendously, so that's why we like laser energy for that type of a system,'' said Air Force Lt. Gen. Ronald Kadish, director of the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization.
The Airborne Laser, the largest program among all boost-phase intercept efforts next fiscal year, is also the one with the most research and development behind it. Initially, ABL is being designed to defeat short-range ballistic missiles. But Kadish said ``we are taking deliberate steps to prepare ABL for a strategic defense role as well.''
System designers currently are focusing on defeating about 30 types of threats, such as liquid and solid-fueled, single- and multi-stage missiles. Destroying longer range missiles may not require a redesign, a senior defense official said. Since ABL is intended to destroy missiles by shooting through the atmosphere
(using a deformable mirror to compensate for turbulence), targeting an ICBM that would be boosting at higher altitudes in less turbulent atmosphere should be possible with the same system. However, that capability must be demonstrated, he said.
THE ABL CONCEPT hasn't been without its critics. For instance, the Pentagon's internal operational test community has suggested that ``producing a system that is operationally suitable will be a challenge.'' Furthermore, in a report to Congress earlier this year, test officials raised concerns that a missile warhead could still cause damage because ABL won't necessarily destroy the rocket but could only shorten its flight time by damaging the booster.
Confidence in the emerging field of laser weapons technology was bolstered last year when the U.S. Army destroyed a short-range Katyusha rocket with its Tactical High-Energy Laser. Although Thel is aimed against a different set of targets than the ABL or Space-Based Laser (SBL)--operating at much shorter ranges--in many respects, the Katyusha is a more difficult target to destroy. The repeated success against short-range rockets gives laser experts confidence that they can certainly knock down boosting ballistic missiles.
But Pentagon officials acknowledge that directed-energy programs have ``a lot of proving to do.'' For ABL, that event will come relatively soon, in about 26 months, when it is slated to attempt to destroy a boosting Scud-like ballistic missile. In the run-up, the ABL will be tested against target boards and mock missiles that are air-dropped.
If the lethal demonstration is successful, the Pentagon would consider using the system in emergencies. However, the prototype ABL will have only six of 14 laser modules and therefore not the full range of an operational system. Additionally, the first shoot-down will not be conducted at the maximum range of even the interim system's capability, said Col. James Forrest, ABL deputy program director.
The Air Force plans to begin flight tests of the laser on a modified 747-400 freighter early next year. First flight at Boeing's Wichita, Kan., facility, where the aircraft is being reconfigured and the battle management system installed, is expected in February. Work on the aircraft is about 80% complete, Forrest said.
Two months later, the aircraft will move to Edwards AFB, Calif., for testing and installation of the optics and laser elements. One of the most recent milestones was delivery of the first two of six infrared sensors to Boeing last month.
The sensors, derivatives of the F-14 infrared search and track system, will be used by ABL to spot the boosting missile and provide 360-deg. coverage. The sensors are being used to refine missile-tracking software. The optics will be added first, tested alone and then in conjunction with the battle management package. The laser will be added and also tested by itself and then with other components.
There will be differences in the way the Pentagon plans to put together later versions of ABL from the prototype, designated YAL-1A.
``We already learned things for the [engineering and manufacturing development] design,'' Forrest noted. But that is causing some heartache in the Pentagon test office. The group complains that given the growing differences, a 24-month EMD phase is likely to be too short. In total, the Air Force expects to field seven aircraft.
Program engineers recently completed a key event by testing a redesigned laser turbopump that's used to pump the hydrogen peroxide fuel through the megawatt-power chemical oxygen iodine laser (Coil). Design problems delayed delivery of the critical element, which was tested successfully for the first time last month at TRW's Capistrano, Calif., test site. The next step is trying to get ``first light''--or laser energy--out of the first of six laser modules to be installed on the prototype aircraft. USAF officials hope to achieve the milestone this month.
Besides its own work, ABL is serving as a trailblazer for SBL technologies. Pentagon officials are particularly drawn to a space-based system because a large enough constellation would provide permanent global coverage, while ABL or most of the Pentagon's other boost-phase intercept systems would have to be deployed and positioned precisely to carry out their mission. A Russian SS-18-like intercontinental ballistic missile is the baseline threat against which SBL is being designed.
But there also are important differences between the two directed-energy systems. While ABL uses a Coil, its space-based counterpart will employ a hydrogen fluoride system. Coil is not suitable for space operations because its chemicals won't mix properly in a zero-g environment, according to Air Force Col. William N. McCasland, SBL program director.
An area in which SBL engineers are directly leveraging ABL work involves the components that will guide the laser. ``The beam control is remarkably similar,'' McCasland said. But because of the close affinities of technologies, some of the problems affecting ABL also are encountered by its space-based counterpart. For instance, ABL officials have seen cost growth because of an industry-wide shortage of some optical coatings. The same bottleneck affects SBL, McCasland said.
AT THIS POINT, SBL work is focused on an integrated flight experiment (IFX) planned for around 2012, with a major ground test of the flight-ready hardware that's supposed to go into space starting about five years earlier. IFX should provide about 110 sec. of in-orbit power using the hydrogen fluoride laser. However, it is serving only as a technology demonstrator, not a limited operational system, program managers stress.
Requirements for an operational system haven't been defined yet, and officials are still debating whether they can augment a constellation of lasers with relay mirrors, or whether an all-laser system is needed. An operational system wouldn't be ready until 2018-20. While industry officials have indicated an acceleration is possible, program managers are not pushing for a faster pace at this point.
The range requirement for the experiment, while not spelled out in detail, will be far more than 100 naut. mi. An operational system would have to have much greater capability.
A baseline requirements review for IFX was recently completed that assigned notional weight goals for different parts of the satellite design. Work has started on defining interfaces and lower level system design elements. Another review is slated for the fall.
To fit into the constraints of a heavy-lift Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle, the total spacecraft is being limited to 53 ft. in height and 43,400 lb. By far the largest element will be the laser payload, which has been allotted 25,265 lb. The beam control is being designed to 5,681 lb., while the beam director--the mirror through which the laser will be pointed--is assigned 3,420 lb. The mirror will measure 2.8 meters in diameter, although it would have to be 8-10 meters in an operational version.
The weight allocation may shift as the program progresses. Because flight weight is such a critical element of the engineering task, managers have established a control group to monitor progress in this area.
IN THE NEAR TERM, engineers will pursue two major risk-reduction paths. One activity centers on demonstrating the ability to control the laser's wavefront. Wavefront manipulation is needed on a multi-line laser such as the one to be used in SBL to achieve defraction-limited performance, which in turn allows the system to project enough power onto a focused spot on the target.
The second major engineering activity will involve the laser itself. While the Alpha laser at Capistrano has validated the basic design of the type of laser SBL will use, it doesn't meet the efficiency requirements and power-level demands for a space-based system. A subscale SBL, also known as the Short Stack that would consist of 10 of 92 rings that produce the laser energy, will be built at Capistrano with the hope of achieving first light in 2003. It will also serve to generate much more laser time.
Alpha has lased for a little more than 100 sec., which isn't enough to start building a flight-ready system. ``We can't go through a process of discovery about the degree to which the laser works on orbit,'' McCasland stressed.
The full flight prototype will be assembled to undergo extensive ground testing at a new facility being built at Stennis Space Center in Mississippi. The prototype will include all elements of weapons-relevant components of an SBL, the laser and optics, but not the spacecraft itself. Once testing of the hardware is completed, it will be refurbished and packaged for flight.
USAF officials hope both directed-energy projects will do more for them than just missile defense work. ABL is being envisioned for potential use in destroying cruise missiles, aircraft or even surface-to-air missiles. SBL, for instance, is seen as potentially having a space-to-ground application, although that would require a laser using an atmosphere-penetrating wavelength that currently isn't being pursued.
SBL also may be able to destroy air-breathing targets or satellites. In both cases, military planners believe they can use the laser system's extensive surveillance tools to provide vital battlefield information to other operators.
Illustration
Illustration: Chart: Boeing has completed about 80% of the modifications it is making to the 747-400F at its Wichita, Kan., facility. The aircraft is slated for first flight early next year and will move to Edwards AFB, Calif., a few weeks later.
Photograph
Photograph: The Pentagon hasn't defined the size of an operational constellation of space-based lasers, but it could range from 18-48 spacecraft and include some relay mirrors.
Illustration
Illustration: Map: This planned test facility at the Stennis Space Center will be where the space-based laser experimental hardware is to undergo intense ground testing before being readied for launch.
Word count: 1785
Copyright 2001 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
Aviation Week & Space Technology 155.7 (August 13, 2001): 55.
x51 Terino, John : Design, directed-energy weapons among OT&E challenges
2001-10
Abstract (summary)
Streamlined acquisition methods also are creating OT&E problems, he said. Some requirements can be met by using modeling and simulation to augment field testing, but too often there is an over- reliance on modeling and simulation, he said. In 1999 and 2000, the tests of half of the systems entering dedicated OT&E were stopped because of design deficiencies.
In addition, new-technology weapons are creating common problems for all the military services, he said. These include directed energy weapons such as lasers and weapons employing high-power microwaves. In many cases, the testers "don't know how to test" the new technology weapons, [Marion L. Williams] said.
Full Text
The military services need help in raising the level of effectiveness of operational test and evaluation (OT&E) to ensure new weapons systems are ready when they are brought into the inventory, a defense official said.
Marion L. Williams, chief scientist of the Air Force's Operational Test and Evaluation Center, Kirtland Air Force Base, N.M., said OT&E is system-centric when it should have a broader system-of-sytems approach to support integrated, joint service operations.
Williams delivered the keynote address to the 39th Annual NDIA Air Targets, UAVs and Range Operations Symposium here.
That system-of-systems approach would not be limited to conducting evaluations in the environment of the service that is developing a weapon system, but would go across service lines to ensure the weapon system is effectively and properly integrated into joint warfighting, Williams said Oct. 3.
While the problem is recognized, the current OT&E focus is still on individual systems, he said. The use of joint distributed engineering plans (JDEPs), testing in exercises, and other ways to address the problem are still not well defined or not implemented, he said.
Streamlined acquisition methods also are creating OT&E problems, he said. Some requirements can be met by using modeling and simulation to augment field testing, but too often there is an over- reliance on modeling and simulation, he said. In 1999 and 2000, the tests of half of the systems entering dedicated OT&E were stopped because of design deficiencies.
'Don't know how to test'
In addition, new-technology weapons are creating common problems for all the military services, he said. These include directed energy weapons such as lasers and weapons employing high-power microwaves. In many cases, the testers "don't know how to test" the new technology weapons, Williams said.
On the positive side, he said a National Directed Energy Alliance that will bring together the services and agencies that are involved to develop effective and comprehensive testing methodologies is underway. The goal is to ensuredirected energy weapons are not just tested in the laboratory, but in training, exercises, and operations.
Williams said he believes the military should find a new way to combine development testing and operational testing that will ensure a focus on employment evaluation.
Word count: 365
Copyright 2001 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
Aerospace Daily 200.5 (Oct 5, 2001): 7.
x52 Terino, John : Design, directed-energy weapons among OT&E challenges
2001-10
Abstract:
Streamlined acquisition methods also are creating OT&E problems, he said. Some requirements can be met by using modeling and simulation to augment field testing, but too often there is an over- reliance on modeling and simulation, he said. In 1999 and 2000, the tests of half of the systems entering dedicated OT&E were stopped because of design deficiencies.
In addition, new-technology weapons are creating common problems for all the military services, he said. These include directed energy weapons such as lasers and weapons employing high-power microwaves. In many cases, the testers "don't know how to test" the new technology weapons, [Marion L. Williams] said.
Full text:
The military services need help in raising the level of effectiveness of operational test and evaluation (OT&E) to ensure new weapons systems are ready when they are brought into the inventory, a defense official said.
Marion L. Williams, chief scientist of the Air Force's Operational Test and Evaluation Center, Kirtland Air Force Base, N.M., said OT&E is system-centric when it should have a broader system-of-sytems approach to support integrated, joint service operations.
Williams delivered the keynote address to the 39th Annual NDIA Air Targets, UAVs and Range Operations Symposium here.
That system-of-systems approach would not be limited to conducting evaluations in the environment of the service that is developing a weapon system, but would go across service lines to ensure the weapon system is effectively and properly integrated into joint warfighting, Williams said Oct. 3.
While the problem is recognized, the current OT&E focus is still on individual systems, he said. The use of joint distributed engineering plans (JDEPs), testing in exercises, and other ways to address the problem are still not well defined or not implemented, he said.
Streamlined acquisition methods also are creating OT&E problems, he said. Some requirements can be met by using modeling and simulation to augment field testing, but too often there is an over- reliance on modeling and simulation, he said. In 1999 and 2000, the tests of half of the systems entering dedicated OT&E were stopped because of design deficiencies.
'Don't know how to test'
In addition, new-technology weapons are creating common problems for all the military services, he said. These include directed energy weapons such as lasers and weapons employing high-power microwaves. In many cases, the testers "don't know how to test" the new technology weapons, Williams said.
On the positive side, he said a National Directed Energy Alliance that will bring together the services and agencies that are involved to develop effective and comprehensive testing methodologies is underway. The goal is to ensure directed energy weapons are not just tested in the laboratory, but in training, exercises, and operations.
Williams said he believes the military should find a new way to combine development testing and operational testing that will ensure a focus on employment evaluation.
People: Williams, Marion
Publication title: Aerospace Daily
Volume: 200
Issue: 5
Pages: 7
Number of pages: 0
Publication year: 2001
Publication date: Oct 5, 2001
x53 Nielsen, Paul D; Noor, Ahmed K; Venneri, Samuel L : The next century of air power
2001-11
The next century of air power
Nielsen, Paul D;Noor, Ahmed K;Venneri, Samuel L
Mechanical Engineering; Nov 2003; 125, 11; ProQuest Science Journals
pg. 34
The U.S. Air Force has been pursuing the transformation of air and space power through development of technologies that yield new capabilities and by adopting novel operational concepts that enhance our ability to achieve desired military effects. Maturing a comprehensive set of technologies is the mission of the Air Force Research Laboratory.
The transformation includes migrating military capabilities to unmanned platforms for a wide range of air applications and developing new directed energy capabilities, which produce effects on the battlefield ranging from the traditional destruction of enemy equipment to the revolutionary non-lethal, non-destructive stopping of advancing enemy troops.
...
Directed Energy
Precision weapons have provent heir value over the last 20 years and have been a deciding factor in all of our recent large-scale military operations. However, the precision weapons of the second century of aerospace may not always carry traditional kinetic warheads like those today.
Directed energy weapons, both laser and high-power microwave, are beginning to emerge as future options for military commanders. These new concepts will provide both the traditional destructive capability of today with a new capability to temporarily or permanently disable an enemy target rather than to destroy it.
The best-known current application of high-power directed energy is the Airborne Laser, or ABL, program now in developmental testing. With roots stretching back to the Airborne Laser Laboratory of the 1970s, the system places a weapons-class chemical laser aboard a modified Boeing 745-400 freighter. Its mission is to destroy enemy ballistic missiles shortly after launch while they are still in the boost phase of flight.
There are actually four lasers onboard this aircraft, as well as advanced optical systems, a sensor suite, and a state-of-the-art computer system. These individual elements function as a system of systems to find, track, and destroy enemy missiles.
...
High-power microwaves, a second directed energy technology, can producte innovative soft-kill, or non-lethal, effects. It has huge potential in command and control warefare, in supporessing enemy air defenses, against tactical aircraft or unmanned aierial vehicles, including missiles, and in airbase defense. When high-power microwaves encounter present-day microelectronic systems, the results can be disastrous to the electronics. Microwaves can cause systems to burn out and fail, or to function improperly.
A short burst of high-power microwave energy, while being lethal to the electronics, will have basically no effect on humans operating the equipment. The low collateral damage aspect of this technology and the heavy reliance on electronic components in today's weaponry make microwave weapons attractive in a wide variety of missions, especially where avoiding civilian casualties is a major concern.
At lower power levels, beam microwaves can also be used to prevent intrusion by unauthorized individuals without hurting them. If the proper frequency and wavelength are selected, millimeter wave energy will penetrate less that 1/64 of an inch into an individual's skin, stimulating the pain sensors and causing an experience of severe pain without physical damage.
x54 Tuttle, Rich : USAF readies RFP for next phase of Have Gold effort
2001-11
Abstract (summary)
"Specifically," the Air Force said, "this effort will support NAIC in conducting all or any part of flight test programs which will include: the design, manufacture and testing of the launch vehicle, ground support equipment, and maneuvering payload module bus; the design, manufacture and testing of instrumented payloads/decoys and their deployment mechanisms; mission planning, including a data collection plan to optimize the payload deployment and sensor orientation for collection from multiple platforms, fabrication or modification of data collection sensors; and analysis of the collected data to provide vehicle and payload performance reports, discrimination of targets, and fusion of multi-sensor data."
Full Text
The Air Force plans to release a request for proposals this month for Have Gold 3A, a program to help the Air Force intelligence community validate potential threats.
The service's National Air Intelligence Center (NAIC) plans to award a five-year, $95 million contract to support its own efforts and those of missile defense programs in the collection and analysis of data on ballistic missile threats.
A series of tasks would be conducted at the Poker Flats Research Range in Alaska. One hypothetical task outlined in the statement of work for the program involves upgrades of radars, optical sensors and infrastructure to support missile defense flight tests; another calls for use of an unmanned aerial vehicle for tracking exercises and signal characterization; another involves building and launching a rocket that would fly a certain trajectory and release re-entry vehicles and penetration aids.
"Specifically," the Air Force said, "this effort will support NAIC in conducting all or any part of flight test programs which will include: the design, manufacture and testing of the launch vehicle, ground support equipment, and maneuvering payload module bus; the design, manufacture and testing of instrumented payloads/decoys and their deployment mechanisms; mission planning, including a data collection plan to optimize the payload deployment and sensor orientation for collection from multiple platforms, fabrication or modification of data collection sensors; and analysis of the collected data to provide vehicle and payload performance reports, discrimination of targets, and fusion of multi-sensor data."
Have Gold - described by NAIC in response to a question as "a vehicle for fast-track responses to support the research and development of defense-related programs/projects and threat validation" - has been underway since 1991. It is involved in a range of activities, including aircraft and associated weapons, electronic systems, military space, materials, structures, manufacturing, directed energy weapons, propulsion, sensors, C4I (command, control, communications, computers, and intelligence), human factors, and chemical and biological warfare.
The scope of Have Gold 3, a follow-on to Have Gold 1 and 2, "has been expanded to include additional functional areas of research and development," NAIC said in response to a question.
Each Have Gold task "is funded by various sponsoring agencies, including funding from the General Defense Intelligence Production Program (GDIPP)," NAIC said. "Fiscal '02 total funding is undetermined at this time."
Asked how many companies will be involved in Have Gold 3, NAIC said the "contract is a small business set aside. It is estimated that the prime contractor will possibly have as many as 50 subcontractors."
A request for proposals for Have Gold 3, NAIC said, is slated to be released Nov. 19.
NAIC, based at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, is the Defense Department's main producer of intelligence on foreign aerospace systems. The information it gathers supports operational Air Force units and R&D activities.
Word count: 465
Copyright 2001 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
Aerospace Daily 200.28 (Nov 7, 2001): 5.
x55 Asker, James R : Dual Use
2001-11
x56 Aviation Week & Space Technology
2001-11
The Navy is seeking proposals for a family of ships with new technology ``across the full spectrum of naval warfare.'' Technologists within the service say the DD(X) ship family, which supersedes the DD21 effort, would have electric drives, which could also power directed-energy weapons for defense against aircraft and missiles. This spring, the Navy will select a single industry team to design the ships and develop the technology.
Word count: 69
Copyright 2001 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
Aviation Week & Space Technology 155.19 (November 5, 2001): 25.
x57 Rivers, Brendan P : USAF, Navy seek new threat emitter
2001-12
Journal of Electronic Defense; Dec 2001; 24, 12; ProQuest Science Journals pg. 36
x58 Brice N. Cassenti1 : A Review of Pulse Fusion Propulsion
2002
A Review of Pulse Fusion Propulsion
Brice N. Cassenti1
AIP Conference Proceedings 608, 780 (2002); doi: 10.1063/1.1449801
CP608, Space Technology and Applications International Forum-STAIF 2002, edited by M.S. El-Genk
Abstract.
During the last forty years there has been considerable interest in both internal and external pulse propulsion systems. Over this time the nuclear devices being considered have grown considerably smaller than those initially examined. Now pellets are normally in the range form 15cm down to 2cm in diameter, and fusion devices are generally preferred. High energy density triggers (such as lasers, particle beams or antiprotons) have been considered for detonating the fusion fuel. When antiprotons are considered it is more efficient to annihilate the antiprotons in a fissionable material, and then use the energy from the fission reaction to drive the fusion reaction in the pellet, than to use the annihilation energy directly. Finally, fissionable material can be used to boost the performance of a fusion system. The early concepts, which used critical mass devices, do not satisfy the ban on nuclear weapons in space, and are only rarely considered today. Concepts based on inertial confinement fusion are heavier than those that use antiprotons for the trigger since the mass associated with the lasers, or particle beams and their power supplies are considerably heavier than the traps used for antiprotons. Hence, from a performance, and even a political, point of view the antiproton-triggered approach is the most desirable, but it also requires more development. Not only is the trigger lighter but an external pulse propulsion rocket does not necessarily need radiators to reject excess heat and, hence, can be even lighter. Propulsion systems based on critical mass devices are clearly feasible, so the primary problem is to reduce the size of the explosive devices so that a critical mass is not required. If pulse nuclear fusion propulsion can become a reality then the performance is enough to complete manned missions to the inner planets in weeks and the outer planets in months.
Introduction
Pulse nuclear propulsion has been the subject of extensive research since the 1950's (Nance, 1965). Early concepts examined external pulse propulsion where small critical mass fission devices are ejected from the rear of the rocket. A pusher plate absorbs some of the energy from the detonation. The absorbed energy ablates the pusher plate and provides thrust for the rocket. Devices that are detonated in an enclosed chamber (i.e., internal pulse propulsion) were also considered (Nance, 1965). Again, in this case, ablation was an important process for applying the thrust.
Recently, there has been renewed interest in both internal and external pulse propulsion systems. For examples of current proposals, see the work of G. A. Smith and his colleagues (Chwieroth, 1995, Lewis, 1990 and Gaidos, 1998). In these later proposals, the nuclear devices being considered are considerably smaller than the earlier porposals. Pellets are normally considered in the range from 15 cm down to 2 cm in diameter. Detonation can occur using inertial confinement fusion concepts (Kammash, 1992a, Williams, 1997, Martin 1978a and 1978b) or a high energy density trigger, such as antiprotons (Lewis, 1990). In inertial confinement fusion systems the compression can be provided using laser beams (Kammash, 1992a) or particle beams (Martin, 1978a and 178b). Smith (Lewis, 1990), has proposed that it is more efficient to annihilate antiprotons in a fissionable material, and then use the energy from the fission reaction to drive the fusion reaction in the pellet. Combining antiprotons and transient magnetic fields, generated during the annihilation, may lead to a system that requires no compression or heating at all (Cassenti, 1997). Finally, it is also possible to include fissionable material that can boost the performance of a fusion propulsion system (Cassenti, 1998).
Antiproton Triggered Systems
In 1990 Gerry Smith and his colleagues at Pennsylvania State University (Lewis, 1990) proposed using antiprotons to first initiate a fission reaction. The antiprotons are injected into a pellet containing plutonium. Each annihilation in a plutonium nucleus would fission one nucleus. The products of the fission reaction would be used drive a fusion reaction. The mass associated with storing and transporting the antiprotons will be significantly less than the relativistic electron beams in the Daedalus vehicle and also much less than the laser in an MICF vehicle.
Analyses of the pellet dynamics indicated that the fusion reaction was just short of ignition, and some compression was still required. The investigators proposed that compression could be achieved using light ion beams (Lewis, 1990). Again the mass associated with the ion driver (100 metric tons) is a significant fraction of the mass of the spacecraft.
Combining the concept of MICF with the antiprotons to trigger a sub-critical mass fission reaction may remove any need to compress the pellets (Cassenti, 1997) and result in a significant decrease in mass.
Hybrid Concepts
Rather than depending on fusion alone, it would be beneficial to add fissionable material to use the neutrons given off in the fusion of deuterium and tritium (Cassenti, 1998 and 1999). If uranium-238 is added to the pellet, then the neutrons generated from the fusion of deuterium and tritium are released at an energy that is sufficient to split the uranium. The high density of uranium will also help to contain the explosion. Finally, it may be possible to use lithium-6 to generate the tritium. Such changes could significantly increase the design space for pellet configurations.
The fusion of tritium and deuterium will be the basic fusion reaction considered, where
1H2+1H3->2He4+0n1 (1)
The helium nucleus carries off 3.5MeV in kinetic energy, and since it is charged it can be used for propulsion, by either directing it with electromagnetic fields or by using it to heat a propellant. The neutron carries off 14MeV in kinetic energy and can neither be readily directed by electromagnetic fields, nor can its energy be easily absorbed.
One possibility for removing the neutron energy is to use it in a further nuclear reaction. The most promising is
0n1+3Li6->2He4+1H3 (2)
Not only does reaction (2) remove a neutron but it also creates the tritium needed for reaction (1). Combing reactions (1) and (2)
1H2+1H3->2He4+2He4 (3)
and no neutrons remain as reaction products.
x59 C.M. Braams & P.E. Stott : Nuclear Fusion: Half a Centuery of Magnetic Confinement Fusion Research
2002
x60 Kenneth D. Bergeron : Tritium on Ice: The Dangerous New Alliance of Nuclear Weapons and Nuclear Power
2002
x61 Anonymous : Proceedings 15th conference on Military Medicine Uniformed Services University of the Health Science
2002-01
Military Medicine; Apr 2002; 167, 4; ProQuest Science Journals pg. 1
Although it is not possible to know exactly what new weapons may be developed over the next twenty to thirty years, it is possible to teach military health care providers to recognize new injury patterns that may indicate the use of new, atypical, or unusual weapons on a future battlefield. The emphasis in this working group, as it relates to conventional weapons, was on the potential medical implications of new, or substantially modified, weapons, and on how military medical educators might best prepare future military health care providers to diagnose and treat the new or atypical injury patterns such weapons might create. Some of the specific weapons types discussed included: enhanced fragmentation weapons, fuel-air and thermobaric-enhanced blast weapons, lasers and other directed energy weapons, and modern anti-armor weapons containing depleted uranium or other heavy metals. Many of these weapons are not new or "unusual," but they are likely to be used with increasing frequency over the next twenty to thirty years, and each presents unique medical management challenges. Additionally, a number of emergying weapons systems, not individually listed here, are designed to incpacitate rather than physically injure or kill. This incapacitation may involve physical or psychological incapacitation -- or a combination of both.[2]
[2] Galbraith KA: Combat Casualties in the First Decade of the 21st Century - New and Emerging Weapons Systems. J R. Army Med Corps; 147: 7-14.
x62 Bob Preston et al. : Space Weapons Earth Wars
2002-01
by Bob Preston; Dana J. Johnson; Sean J.A. Edwards; Michael Miller; Calvin Shipbaugh
http://www.rand.org/pubs/monograph_reports/MR1209/
During the Reagan administration in the 1980s, vigorous public debate surfaced with the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), a sustained, significant investment in technologies for defense against ballistic missiles. The initiative explored space-based defenses�interceptors, directed-energy weapons, and even nuclear weapons (x-ray lasers). All these space-based missile defenses would require renegotiation or abrogation of the ABM Treaty and presumably also of related arms control treaties. The last item would also violate the Outer Space Treaty�s ban on nuclear weapons in space.
[*] Directed-energy weapons include lasers, high-energy particle beams, and highpower microwave beams.
[**] To avoid the issue of nuclear weapons in space, proponents of the x-ray laser offered to base it on the earth or in the oceans on missiles that would lift the weapon above the atmosphere where its x-rays could propagate to the target.
...
The most significant characteristic of this class of weapon is propagation of destructive energy at very high speeds. ... However, while the speed of propagation may be dazzling, the speed of effect will be more pedestrian. Because useful effects take time to accumulate or sustain and time to redirect from target to target, the capacity of directed-energy weapons is inherently limited. The specific limits depend on the scale and duration of effect necessary for the military purpose at hand. Useful levels of disruptive or destructive energy at the target range from gentle to extreme; the class of weapons we discuss here includes the range from electronic jammers to laser cutting torches. At the level of jamming, a weapon consists of a radio transmitter tuned to cover a target range of frequencies and focused on target receivers to achieve a power level high enough to compete with the receivers� intended signals. At the level of destruction, a weapon supplies enough power to heat some critical component of the target beyond its ability to survive.
The challenge in achieving destructive levels of directed energy from space is scaling up to the power levels and component sizes needed to focus a lethal energy level over the much greater distances inherent in space basing. For example, a laser welding machine in a factory typically uses a laser with a few hundred to a few thousand watts of power directed by optics with a diameter less than 0.1 m. A spacebased laser intended for targets on or near the earth requires millions of watts of power and optics with a diameter of about 10 m. The ability to create effects at the level of interference or disruption (e.g., jamming) is readily available worldwide; generating and directing the more destructive effects from or through space is a stretch for everyone.
...
The amount of energy needed at the target to produce the desired effect depends on how the weapon�s energy couples with the target. Factors that influence the degree or efficiency of coupling include the target�s materials, configuration, and orientation and how these interact with the particular characteristics of the energy the weapon transmits. Laser energy interacts with the surface of the target. High-energy particles penetrate further into the target... The weapon�s budget for energy needed at the target must include an assumption about the efficiency of coupling (or, equivalently, of the hardness of the target) and some degree of uncertainty about the assumption.
x63 Conference to attract new blood to defense research
2002-01-29
Aerospace Daily 201.19 (Jan 29, 2002): 7.
Abstract (summary)
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and U.S. Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) plan to host a conference in March aimed at bringing innovative new technological ideas to the table to help fight America's 21st century conflicts.
The conference is primarily intended for researchers and inventors who have not been principals on Department of Defense contracts before. Selectees will have the opportunity to network and interact with DARPA personnel, as well as special operations forces, including Navy SEALS and Army Green Berets.
Full Text
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and U.S. Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) plan to host a conference in March aimed at bringing innovative new technological ideas to the table to help fight America's 21st century conflicts.
The application deadline is Jan. 30 for scientists and researchers interested in attending the first annual "Scientists Helping America" conference, which will be held March 11-13 at the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, D.C. Two hundred applicants will be chosen and notified by mail no later than Feb. 19.
The conference is primarily intended for researchers and inventors who have not been principals on Department of Defense contracts before. Selectees will have the opportunity to network and interact with DARPA personnel, as well as special operations forces, including Navy SEALS and Army Green Berets.
DOD is particularly interested in innovative ideas in nine key technical areas, including advanced training systems; batteries and fuel cells; bioengineering and chemical/biological defense; directed- energy weapons; wide-bandwidth reach-back communications; remote sensing; signature reduction; underwater communications; and unmanned systems.
The conference will also include workshops to allow the scientists to network directly with military personnel, as well as special tutorial sessions on working with the government, obtaining security clearances, and understanding the broad agency announcement (BAA) process.
"We want to tap new resources to help us in our fight against terrorism," Jane A. Alexander, deputy director of DARPA, said in a statement. "These scientists can ... take us in directions that we might not have thought of in the past."
Scientists and researchers can find more information at the conference website: http://safe.sysplan.com/scihelpamerica.
x64 Selinger, Marc : Air Force reassessing bomber replacement plans
2002-02
Aerospace Daily 201.35 (Feb 21, 2002): 4.
Turn on hit highlighting for speaking browsers by selecting the Enter button
Abstract (summary)
A November 2001 unclassified report, "Long-Range Strike Aircraft White Paper," notes that a 1999 Air Force white paper called for starting the replacement process by 2013 and achieving an initial operational capability for the new bomber in 2037. The 2001 paper says the 1999 conclusions may now be outdated and that the Air Force is starting to re-examine them.
Since reaching its earlier analysis, the Air Force has announced its intention to shrink its B-1 bomber fleet by about a third. It has also decided to scale back the B-52's use in low-level flying to reduce strain on the aging aircraft, according to Richard Aboulafia, an analyst with the Teal Group.
Full Text
The U.S. Air Force has begun to reassess its plans for fielding a next-generation bomber, according to a service document.
A November 2001 unclassified report, "Long-Range Strike Aircraft White Paper," notes that a 1999 Air Force white paper called for starting the replacement process by 2013 and achieving an initial operational capability for the new bomber in 2037. The 2001 paper says the 1999 conclusions may now be outdated and that the Air Force is starting to re-examine them.
Since reaching its earlier analysis, the Air Force has announced its intention to shrink its B-1 bomber fleet by about a third. It has also decided to scale back the B-52's use in low-level flying to reduce strain on the aging aircraft, according to Richard Aboulafia, an analyst with the Teal Group.
The 2001 white paper suggests the Air Force will be taking a broad look at its future bomber needs. Atmospheric, sub-orbital and orbital approaches will all be examined.
"This could be an air-breathing system like the current bombers or it might be something else," Air Force Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, testified at a Feb. 6 House Armed Services Committee hearing. Unlike rocket engines, which carry their own oxygen, jet engines breathe air as they fly.
'Pressures' could affect timeline
Although all three existing bombers - the B-1, B-2 and B-52 - are expected to remain structurally sound for the next four or five decades based on current projections, the 2001 white paper says several "pressures" could eventually force the Air Force to move up or delay the replacement of the fleet. Among these factors are "future threats" and "conflict."
"Significant developments in counter-stealth technologies, directed energy weapons or proliferation of and advances in surface- to-air missiles and fifth-generation fighters could force radical changes in the use of our current forces and have the potential to render much of it obsolete," according to the paper. "Any conflict occurring prior to the retirement of the current bomber aircraft could result in a force structure reduction due to combat attrition."
The bomber replacement schedule also could be affected by "unforeseen increases in sustainment costs," which "can occur from a variety of areas, including parts obsolescence or diminishing manufacturing sources for parts and systems unique to the platforms," the paper says.
x65 Nick Jonson : Analysts divided on significance of Northrop Grumman-TRW merger
2002-02
Aerospace Daily 201.38 (Feb 26, 2002): 4.
Abstract (summary)
James McAleese, principal of McAleese & Associates, a law firm specializing in aerospace and defense matters, said Northrop Grumman's proposed acquisition of TRW represents an entry into the emerging market area of offensive, leap-ahead technologies.
Rich Pettibone, a companies analyst for Forecast International, said that aside from the merger of the Northrop and Grumman corporations in early 1994, Northrop Grumman was largely left out of the first phase of defense consolidations that started in the early 1990s.
Northrop Grumman's acquisition of TRW would build upon its earlier acquisition of Litton Industries and bolster the company's position in electronics, systems integration and especially in space systems, Pettibone said (see related story on Page 5).
Full Text
Aerospace and defense industry analysts are divided over whether Northrop Grumman's proposed acquisition of TRW Inc. represents the beginning or the end of a new wave of consolidation in the industry.
DFI International Vice President William Lynn, who served in the Clinton Administration as undersecretary of defense and comptroller, said Northrop Grumman's bid to acquire TRW (DAILY, Feb. 25) represents the first in a series of vertical and horizontal mergers that will begin this year.
"Because of the run-up in defense spending, a lot of people are looking around for different combinations. Each of the primes has tried to position itself to acquire complementary businesses," he said.
Though some acquisitions, like the proposed Northrop Grumman-TRW merger, will be vertical, lower-level subcontractors manufacturing similar products also will merge, he predicted. The motivation for the lower-tiered companies, Lynn said, won't be to compete against the prime contractors but to gain strength.
As long as defense spending continues to increase, the number of mergers and acquisitions is likely to continue, Lynn said.
"I don't see any reason Congress will try to rein in defense spending, and I don't see the president backing off with his defense spending proposals," he added.
James McAleese, principal of McAleese & Associates, a law firm specializing in aerospace and defense matters, said Northrop Grumman's proposed acquisition of TRW represents an entry into the emerging market area of offensive, leap-ahead technologies.
McAleese said TRW has a footing in several emerging market areas, including battle management command-and-control communications (BMC3), space-based communications and surveillance, directed-energy weapons and advanced software architecture and integration expertise.
But some analysts believe the proposed Northrop Grumman-TRW merger represents the final chapter in a wave of consolidations that began in the early 90s.
Rich Pettibone, a companies analyst for Forecast International, said that aside from the merger of the Northrop and Grumman corporations in early 1994, Northrop Grumman was largely left out of the first phase of defense consolidations that started in the early 1990s.
That worked to the company's benefit, Pettibone said, because senior managers were later able to target their acquisitions with greater precision.
Several companies, such as Lockheed Martin, "quickly gained a lot of critical mass and then shed it," he said. Examples include the L- 3 Communications spin-off in 1997 and the sale of the Sanders unit in 2000, he added.
Northrop Grumman's acquisition of TRW would build upon its earlier acquisition of Litton Industries and bolster the company's position in electronics, systems integration and especially in space systems, Pettibone said (see related story on Page 5).
But that acquisition represents the "tail-end" of the consolidation wave, he said. In fact, there may now be a wave of divestitures as companies seek to narrow their focus.
Marco Caceres, a space analyst with the Teal Group, said he found Northrop's bid for TRW puzzling.
"I can't believe someone in corporate said 'there is money to be made in military space, and in particular, missile defense,' " he said. "I just can't believe they would make such a large acquisition for missile defense."
Acquiring the space and electronics group guarantees that Northrop Grumman will have a role in the SBIRS-Low program, Caceres said. That program could generate more than $10 billion for the company over the next 10 to 15 years, he added.
But Northrop Grumman executives probably saw the acquisition of TRW's space and electronics group as a way to compete more aggressively with Boeing and Lockheed Martin for satellite programs down the road, he said.
x66 Fulghum, David a. : Directed-Energy Weapons To Arm Unmanned Craft: War planners anticipate benefits from unmanned vehicles and weapons that may produce no collateral damage
2002-02
Aviation Week & Space Technology 156.8 (February 25, 2002): 28-29.
Abstract (summary)
The US Air Force intends to put a high-power microwave (HPM) weapon on an advanced version of its unmanned strike aircraft by 2012. Barring long-term health effects, HPM produces little physical damage except to electronic devices. The pulse from a high-power microwave weapon is designed to follow virtually any conduit - electrical lines, antennas, water lines - deep into any hardened or underground structure and still be powerful enough to upset electronics inside with a large spike of energy.
Full Text
The U.S. Air Force intends to put a high-power microwave weapon on an advanced version of its unmanned strike aircraft by 2012.
This reflects a keen new interest by Congress and the Pentagon in the increasingly attractive combination of unmanned aircraft--which means fewer U.S. aircrew casualties in the most dangerous missions--and new weaponry pulled from long-classified programs.
Moreover, it points to what senior aerospace officials and specialists in directed energy say is a happy intersection in maturation between directed-energy weapons technology and the unmanned air combat vehicle (UCAV), which Congress says should make up one-third of the strike aircraft inventory by 2010. Even though Pentagon officials say they will not be able to meet the congressional deadline, the future is still considered so promising that major corporations are rushing to establish new companies to capture the expanding business. For corporate planners, missiles and bombs represent mature technologies, while directed energy holds the key to large future profits.
Previously, attention had been focused on large devices like the airborne chemical laser, designed to knock out ballistic missiles. The Navy's DD-X ship design is to have an electric drive that can provide the power for directed-energy weapons that can quickly destroy supersonic anti-ship missiles. But in the near- term, interest is quickly turning to smaller, cheaper solid-state high-energy laser (HEL) and high-power microwave (HPM) weapons that use finesse rather than brute force to disable targets. Raytheon, TRW and Lockheed Martin, among others, are producing concepts for a wide range of such devices.
Aerospace officials envision an HPM weapon for the Air Force's UCAV that is palletized and sized to fit into its newly enlarged weapons bay. ``It will be self contained with a thermal-rejection [cooling] apparatus, and it will load up like ordnance,'' said a senior aerospace official. UCAVs with early model directed-energy weapons would target air defense missiles and radar sites. One benefit of such weapons would be that collateral damage to people and structures ``goes to zero,'' he said. Such ``infinite precision'' would avoid many of the restrictions imposed by current rules of engagement.
Some question the claim for infinite precision and lack of collateral damage. However, barring long-term health effects, HPM produces little physical damage except to electronic devices. Lasers, if aimed correctly, would likely limit damage to the width of their beams.
STILL TO BE DETERMINED is the relative advantage of a payload that returns with the UCAV, or a disposable, one-shot, directed-energy weapon. The latter resembles standoff missiles that could be fired into a high-risk area to disable key components of a headquarters, communications or air defense complex to open the target for further attack. Officials say that both concepts are under development. The damaging effects of HPM, for example, are magnified at a geometric rate as the emitter gets closer to the target. Specialists also say that moving the generation of a burst of microwaves from the UCAV to a standoff weapon could avoid damaging the aircraft through electronic fratricide.
The largely hidden promise of HPM weapon variants is that they can be used to attack a previously impervious new set of targets. Examples include command and control centers or communications nodes buried in mountainsides or deep underground. Iran, Iraq, North Korea, Afghanistan and Libya have all invested heavily in large underground structures that also can hide chemical and biological production facilities, aircraft and missiles,
The pulse from a high-power microwave weapon is designed to follow virtually any conduit--electrical lines, antennas, water lines--deep into any hardened or underground structure and still be powerful enough to upset electronics inside with a large spike of energy. The Air Force Research Laboratory at Kirtland AFB, N.M., is working on at least five such projects.
A solid-state laser, by contrast, generates pulsed power that creates an energy buildup that damages targets made of relatively soft, easy-to-melt metals such as aluminum and other lightweight materials used extensively in missiles. Missiles are designed close to their heat margins, so they are vulnerable to thermal stress.
USAF officials admit that lethality studies have not yet been conducted on high-energy lasers and high-power microwave devices; therefore, weapons effects are not precisely known. However, advocates of the technology predict both will be useful ``anti-electronics'' weapons. They will be able to scramble the memories of battlefield computers, disable vehicle ignitions and confuse the guidance of infrared and radar-guided missiles.
SPECIALISTS PREDICT that the power generation of solid-state lasers, for example, will increase rapidly from the current range of up to 3,000 watts to 15 kw. by 2004 and to 100 kw. by 2006-07. A directed-energy weapon with the power to ``kill a main battle tank is a decade away,'' said one aerospace industry expert. He also notes that the problems of HEL or HPM are common--power conditioning, heat and flux--so that solving the problems of one will speed development of the other.
x67 Robert Wall : Air Force UCAV Design Reworked
2002-02
Aviation Week & Space Technology 156.8 (February 25, 2002): 28-30.
Abstract (summary)
The Air Force's unmanned combat air vehicle will be much larger and heavier than first thought, following a redesign intended to narrow the gap between initial prototypes and an operational system. The first prototype, the X-45A, is slated to fly this spring, while a second is nearly completed. Both are of the original, smaller design. To improve aerodynamic performance, the aircraft's wing area and fuselage length have increased.
Full Text
The Air Force's unmanned combat air vehicle will be much larger and heavier than first thought, following a redesign intended to narrow the gap between initial prototypes and an operational system.
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and Boeing matured the existing design over several months. The new look comes at a time when the Pentagon has opted to field the system as soon as possible. The Fiscal 2003 defense budget request puts the project on the fast track, with the goal of fielding 14 aircraft by 2003.
The first prototype, the X-45A, is slated to fly this spring, while a second is nearly completed. Both are of the original, smaller design. Boeing and Darpa updated the design to prepare for production of the more operationally representative system, the X-45B. ``We are trying to make this more of a `fieldable' prototype,'' said Darpa program manager USAF Col. Michael Leahy. ``The basic vision, although refined, has not changed drastically,'' he added.
To improve aerodynamic performance, the aircraft's wing area and fuselage length have increased. The wing area grew by 63% and the fuselage, 11%. The total vehicle is now 24% larger and, as a result, empty weight has ballooned 31%.
In addition, the redesign ups the length of the UCAV's internal weapons bay by 21 in. to 168 in. This should allow the aircraft to carry six small-diameter bombs internally and give the UCAV the same-size bay as the Joint Strike Fighter's, Leahy said. The bay's width also has grown by 5.25 in. to 26.6 in., but height has shrunk 4 in. to 17 in.
Changes also will be made to the propulsion system. The airframe has been expanded to accept a turbofan with a 26-in.-dia. fan, versus the 24-in. version now used. The increase should boost thrust by 7% and elevate the UCAV into the 7,000-lb.-thrust class. The engine that will be used in the larger cavity hasn't been selected. Boeing and the Air Force Research Laboratory will undertake an engine study this summer to make that selection. Leahy said several options exist. Moreover, the exhaust nozzle length has been increased 25 in. For the time being, the X-45 will continue to use Honeywell's F124 turbofan.
The design changes affect the logistics footprint for the UCAV. While six of the X-45As would fit in a C-17, only four of the larger UCAVs would fit.
The X-45B also will feature enhancements over the first two prototypes, including the addition of low-observable features. First flight of the X-45B is slated to occur in late 2004.
To help ensure the UCAV will be operationally useful around 2008, Darpa has expanded two demonstrations. In the main one--the so-called Block 5 Graduation Exercise--the UCAV is supposed to participate in a major, joint drill. Multiple UCAVs are to be used to demonstrate the ability to pinpoint and attack air defense radars. At that point, in mid-2004, the system's anti-jam, beyond-line-of-sight communications system also should be ready. Additionally, UCAVs will be flown alongside manned aircraft and reconnaissance UAVs to show that the different systems can operate in parallel.
Under the accelerated schedule the Pentagon has laid out, development of the Block 10 aircraft would begin at the end of 2004. Basic suppression of enemy air defense and strike capabilities would be featured. Block 20 work would begin a year later and add reactive air defense suppression. The most sophisticated version--Block 30 with directed-energy weapons carriage--would begin its development in 2008. After years of funding uncertainty, the program is now fully funded through 2007, Leahy said.
ALTHOUGH THE AIR FORCE is farthest along with its UCAV concept, the other services are making inroads. Army efforts are still relatively immature, but the service hopes to gain experience later this year when it will arm a Hunter UAV. The Army wants to put a BAT anti-armor munition under each Hunter wing. The operator would then simply drop the unpowered, smart submunition. BAT uses a combination of acoustic and infrared sensors to find its target.
The armed Hunter would represent only a small step toward what the Army eventually wants to field. In a long-range plan, officials hope to develop an unmanned combat rotorcraft, or UCAR, that would be analogous to the Air Force's fixed-wing UCAV, said John C. Sundberg, the Army's deputy program manager for tactical UAVs.
Boeing, which has a hand in the Air Force's and Navy's UCAV programs, also plans to compete for UCAR, said Mike Heinz, Boeing's director of unmanned aircraft. ``We are going to bid it,'' he said, although no decision has been made on what vehicle might be offered. One option would be to draw on Boeing's work on the Canard Rotor Wing--a rotorcraft featuring a large canard and horizontal tail as lifting surfaces, two large rotor blades and a turbofan engine. However, Heinz said, another option might be teaming with Frontier Systems and offering the A160 Hummingbird.
More refined than the Army's vision for an unmanned combat system are emerging plans for extended-range tactical UAVs and small or micro UAVs. The small systems should have a range of 5-10 km. (3-6 mi.) and be able to stay aloft for ``a couple of hours,'' Sundberg said. The Army expects to piggyback a Darpa effort that would help mature technologies needed for an operational system. The Army doesn't expect to start an acquisition program until 2005 or 2006.
On the larger end, the Army has asked industry for ideas for an extended-range UAV to replace Hunter, and provide a more capable system than the Shadow-200 the Army is buying for brigade commanders. Service officials are interested in two systems--a rotary UAV and a fixed-wing system. However, those two could be combined. The Army envisions a fairly aggressive program that would start this year, lead to testing of existing systems and a competition in 2003 and 2004, and an initial operational capability around 2006.
The future UAV would have to have a range of at least 200 km. with a goal of 300 km. and be able to loiter on-station 8-12 hr. while carrying a 200-lb. payload. The fixed-wing system would most likely be armed, Sundberg indicated.
Among the systems the Army will consider are the Predator used by the Air Force, and the A160 Hummingbird that's being developed under a Darpa contract. The latter, a long-endurance rotorcraft, may allow the Army to meet the fixed-wing and rotorcraft UAV requirements in one system, Sundberg noted.
THE NAVY, TOO, is moving ahead on its UCAV. Darpa, which is leading the development, is slated to award contracts to either Boeing or Northrop Grumman for the next phase. Northrop Grumman is considered the front runner. However, John Kinzer, the deputy program manager, said two contracts may be awarded. The first would be to fund a company to build prototypes. The second, which would have much less value, would allow the losing bidder to remain in the program doing design work in case problems develop with the primary contractor. Both companies have shown a lot of innovation, Kinzer said, and the government wants to preserve their ideas.
Whether a small study contract will be enough to keep a second company as a viable competitor is unclear, however. ``It would be difficult,'' Heinz noted.
Photograph
Photograph: The X-45A prototype has completed medium-speed taxi tests in preparation for its first flight, scheduled for the spring.
x68 Directed-energy weapons for Navy is dependent on electric-drive vessels
2002-03
Aerospace Daily 201.42 (Mar 4, 2002): 2.
Abstract (summary)
DIRECTED ENERGY: Navy deployment of directed-energy weapons will require the development of advanced vessels with electric-drive propulsion systems, according to Adm. Robert Natter, commander-in- chief of the Atlantic Fleet.
Full Text
DIRECTED ENERGY: Navy deployment of directed-energy weapons will require the development of advanced vessels with electric-drive propulsion systems, according to Adm. Robert Natter, commander-in- chief of the Atlantic Fleet. "It is very dependent upon an electric power source," Natter says, because electric-drive ships are needed to provide sufficient power to the weapons. The deployment of electric-drive ships with directed-energy weapons could occur within a decade if the project receives enough funding, he says. When directed-energy weapons are developed, Natter says he would prefer a weapon that could be fired against incoming cruise missile from a ship, as opposed to a system that would be dropped from an airplane and fired on targets from above. "I know that if I have something like that on a ship, I could sustain it for months. An airplane, you've got to land," he says. The Navy is moving toward electric propulsion with its new family of destroyers, called DD(X).
x69 Nick Jonson : Boeing and SAIC soon to release broad industry announcements for FCS work
2002-03
Aerospace Daily 201.48 (Mar 12, 2002): 1.
Abstract (summary)
Bob Mitchell, director of strategic development for the FCS, said senior Army officials are reviewing the team's draft announcements to be distributed to other defense contractors. The announcements, which will be sent out simultaneously within the next month, will seek proposals for platforms, components and command, control, communications, computers, & intelligence systems (C4I) to be included in the FCS.
Mitchell said the team's plan for developing the FCS is divided into four-year blocks. Systems to be developed for the first block in 2010 include a command-and-control platform, a carrier for unmanned aerial vehicles, beyond-the-line-of-sight/line-of-sight vehicle, an infantry carrier, and robotic scout vehicles of different sizes. That could change depending upon what the Army wants to incorporate, and when, he added.
Full Text
Pending approval by the Army, the Boeing Co. immediately will begin issuing broad industry announcements for platform and system architecture proposals for the Army's Future Combat Systems, senior Boeing officials said March 11.
Late last week, Boeing and its partner, Science Applications International Corp., were awarded a 16-month, $154 million contract to be the lead systems integrator for the concept and technology development phase of the Army's Future Combat Systems (DAILY, March 8).
Bob Mitchell, director of strategic development for the FCS, said senior Army officials are reviewing the team's draft announcements to be distributed to other defense contractors. The announcements, which will be sent out simultaneously within the next month, will seek proposals for platforms, components and command, control, communications, computers, & intelligence systems (C4I) to be included in the FCS.
"The 'when' is all related to when the Army says 'Yes, you can go,' " he said during a news media briefing.
Mitchell added that he expects "all the traditional players" to take part in developing the FCS, the first version of which must be deployed in 2010.
"I don't anticipate [Boeing and SAIC] building any armored vehicles," he said. "We're going to go to General Dynamics, United Defense, General Motors, wherever we find the best fit for the Army."
Ron Prosser, vice president of advanced space and communications in Boeing's Space and Communications division, said the team was required to submit, as part of its LSI proposal, a detailed plan showing which technologies and weapon systems would be developed and when. Such platforms and systems include lightweight armored vehicles, a command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (C4ISR) system, and unmanned air and ground vehicles.
"This is a system of systems endeavor that is really complex, and you have to get C4ISR right in order to do this," Prosser said.
Mitchell said the team's plan for developing the FCS is divided into four-year blocks. Systems to be developed for the first block in 2010 include a command-and-control platform, a carrier for unmanned aerial vehicles, beyond-the-line-of-sight/line-of-sight vehicle, an infantry carrier, and robotic scout vehicles of different sizes. That could change depending upon what the Army wants to incorporate, and when, he added.
Although most of the weapon systems and robotic vehicles probably will be developed by the end of Block 1, their capabilities will not be as advanced as they will be in later blocks, he said. The plan also calls for the deployment ofdirected energy weapons, Mitchell said.
"But they're not ready yet, and they're not ready yet in the size where we could put them in a platform," he said. "But maybe by Block 2, you could have a chemical laser, for example, that will fit into a platform. By Block 3, you might have a solid-state laser that would replace that chemical laser."
Prosser said the total contract value for producing and deploying the initial FCS system by 2010 is estimated at $60 billion. The total market value in developing similar integrated system-of- systems for all the services over the next decade is estimated at $200 billion, he said.
Those systems include not only the Army's FCS but also Navy projects, as well as plans to develop cyber-warfare and space- warfare systems for the DOD, he added.
Muellner said developing such systems as the lead systems integrator "tends to be a high-margin, low capital [area] to work in. So you do get good earnings from the revenue you do win."
x70 Anthony L Velocci, Jr. : TRW Bides Time Following Northrop Bid
2002-03
Aviation Week & Space Technology 156.9 (March 4, 2002): 50-51.
Abstract (summary)
With TRW Inc. in play and financial markets anticipating competing offers for the company, the aerospace/defense industry last week appeared poised for a bidding war. Leading the charge will be Northrop Grumman Corp., which recently made an unsolicited offer of $47 in Northrop common stock for every one of TRW's. Its interest in TRW dates back at least several years. The transaction would be valued at about $11 billion, including the assumption of about $5 billion in TRW debt.
Full Text
With TRW Inc. in play and financial markets anticipating competing offers for the company, the aerospace/defense industry last week appeared poised for a bidding war.
Leading the charge will be Northrop Grumman Corp., which recently made an unsolicited offer of $47 in Northrop common stock for every one of TRW's. Its interest in TRW dates back at least several years. The transaction would be valued at about $11 billion, including the assumption of about $5 billion in TRW debt.
That's provided, of course, Northrop's offer prevails. This latest development in the aerospace/defense industry's on-going consolidation remains fluid. BAE Systems, Boeing Co., General Dynamics Corp. and Lockheed Martin are all considered potential bidders. Others also could emerge.
NORTHROP'S BID CAME just two days after TRW Chairman and CEO David Cote announced he would be leaving the company to join Honeywell International--causing TRW to lose substantial market valuation. ``It was classic Northrop Grumman,'' said Jon Kutler, president of Quarterdeck Investment Partners. ``Cote's departure effectively put TRW in play, and Northrop made its long-awaited move.''
Northrop Chairman and CEO Kent Kresa told Aviation Week & Space Technology that while the company considers TRW a ``very important asset,'' Northrop won't overpay. J.P. Morgan analyst Joseph B. Nadol, 3rd, thinks that's probably true. ``Should the terms of a potential deal become too onerous, I believe Northrop would back away.'' That's what the company did when it found itself competing for Hughes' defense operation, for which Raytheon Co. wound up paying the higher amount.
Word of Northrop Grumman's offer on Feb. 22 drove TRW's stock up by $10.50, to $50.30 a share. Before a winner is decided, investors and analysts alike believe the winning bid will be closer to $60 a share. Predicted a key industry observer, ``Whoever emerges as the winner will overpay.'' Perhaps. On the other hand, bidders may decide TRW justifies a sizable premium based on its long-term strategic value. (Northrop Grumman's bid was a premium of 22% over the average trading price of TRW's stock for the last 12 months and 4% over the highest closing price during the same period. One analyst called TRW's stock price ``dead money for the last 15 years.'')
``The logic of wanting to acquire TRW is unassailable,'' an industry observer said. ``The company probably has the best concentration of advanced technology in the aerospace/defense marketplace. Kresa is trying to build a defense company for the 21st century, and if he pulls this off, he will have achieved his goal. He also will have made Northrop Grumman the best-positioned of all the defense contractors--by a long shot--to take advantage of the Pentagon's shift toward smart warfare.'' A large investor called TRW ``a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity'' for Northrop.
TRW is heavily involved in the development of next-generation directed energy weapons (lasers and high-power microwave), advanced aircraft electronics, space-based communications and surveillance systems, and digital battlefield monitors. Directed energy is a component of future air defense, communications, air-to-air and air-to-ground weapons, suppression and destruction of air defenses, and computer attack. Moreover, TRW's military space and information technology businesses have key roles in the Bush Administration's ballistic missile defense initiative.
TRW has an aeronautical systems unit (6% of sales) that manufactures missile actuators, flight and engine controls, cargo handling equipment and auxiliary power units. Industry observers believe that operation would be divested by Northrop Grumman, since it wouldn't fit smoothly into Northrop's core businesses encompassing systems integration, defense electronics and IT. Its value may be impaired, however, because of the weak outlook for the commercial aircraft business.
``TRW'S SPACE BUSINESS is what drove us,'' Kresa said. Space systems and missile defense are two major gaps in Northrop's portfolio.
Of TRW's $16 billion in sales in 2001, $6.1 billion, or 38%, came from aerospace and information systems. Space and electronics accounted for 31% of the $6.1 billion; aeronautical systems, 18%, and systems (including information technology-related businesses), 51%.
TRW's IT business is expected to generate sales of about $3.5 billion in 2002, according to Deutsche Banc Alex. Brown analyst Christopher Mecray. Its addition would nearly double the core of Northrop's IT operation. The business is split between defense (44%), intelligence (23%), civil/federal (19%) and commercial (14%).
Most of TRW is focused on the automotive industry (59% of sales), and that could be a problem for the company's new owner.
If that turns out to be Northrop Grumman, it expects to sell the huge automotive business or spin it off to shareholders. Excluding automotive, Northrop Grumman projects combined 2003 sales of $26-27 billion--again, assuming Northrop prevails in a bidding war. (As recently as 1999, Northrop Grumman was a $6.2-billion contractor.)
That might be easier said than done. Clearly, Wall Street is skeptical. Buyers for automotive [properties] are scarce, according to Deutsche Banc Alex. Brown analyst Ken Blaschke.
Despite such challenges, JSA Research analyst Paul Nisbet said any other potential bidder should assume Northrop has a well-conceived game plan in mind--given that President and Chief Operating Officer Ronald Sugar recently was vice chairman of TRW.
BESIDES AUTOMOTIVE, the only other two areas might cause problems for Northrop are regulatory approvals and integration of the TRW businesses. Not surprisingly, Kresa has no misgivings about either. ``Our antitrust counsel has advised us that delays in connection with the antitrust review process should be minimal, and we believe a transaction realistically could be completed in the third quarter of this year,'' he advised TRW CEO Philip A. Odeen.
Analysts and other industry observers tend to agree. ``I see no vertical integration issues,'' Washington-based defense contracts attorney James McAleese said. ``The IT field is still too fragmented to raise any concerns, and on the space side of the business, the customer purchases architectures and sensors independently of each other.''
Another well-placed industry observer said, ``There are no screaming antitrust issues, but it's a case that is apt to receive a second request for information.''
Illustration
Illustration: Graph: Value of U.S. Aerospace/Defence Merger & Acquisition Activity (1992 Through Oct. 31, 2001)
Illustration
Illustration: Graph: Sales Contribution of Different TRW Aerospace and Information Systems Businesses.
x71 Marc Selinger : U.S. space dominance faces growing threats, officials say
2002-03
Aerospace Daily 201.54 (Mar 20, 2002): 3.
Turn on hit highlighting for speaking browsers by selecting the Enter button
Abstract (summary)
By 2010, possible enemies are expected to have more means at their disposal to impede U.S. space support systems, Navy Vice Adm. Thomas Wilson, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee. China and Russia have the most counter-space capabilities now, but other countries, as well as non-state entities, also are pursuing them in hopes of turning U.S. reliance on space into a weakness that could be exploited in a conflict.
Full Text
The U.S. faces growing threats to its space dominance, as potential adversaries are making significant progress in fielding their own space assets and developing tools to disrupt American space systems, U.S. intelligence officials said March 19.
By 2010, possible enemies are expected to have more means at their disposal to impede U.S. space support systems, Navy Vice Adm. Thomas Wilson, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee. China and Russia have the most counter-space capabilities now, but other countries, as well as non-state entities, also are pursuing them in hopes of turning U.S. reliance on space into a weakness that could be exploited in a conflict.
Potential adversaries are exploring such capabilities as directed energy weapons, space object tracking systems, physical attacks on satellite ground stations, signals jamming, and information attacks against computer and communication systems. They are also improving their ability to perform denial and deception, which involves hiding plans, activities, facilities and capabilities from U.S. intelligence.
The least sophisticated options are the ones most likely to become available to a "broader array of actors," Wilson said. An attack on a ground station, for example, is "obviously the larger threat" than a direct assault on satellites.
Sen. Wayne Allard (R-Colo.), whose state is home to U.S. Space Command, called the growing threat to U.S. space systems "disturbing."
Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet told the committee that the advantage the U.S. has enjoyed in space for the past few decades is "eroding" as China, India and other countries field increasingly sophisticated reconnaissance satellites.
The private sector is contributing to that erosion, Tenet added. Foreign military, intelligence and terrorist organizations are exploiting an expanding commercial supply of communications and navigation services and high-resolution satellite imagery.
x72 Tuttle, Rich : DOD initiative weaves technologies to boost aerospace capabilities
2002-05
Aerospace Daily 202.27 (May 7, 2002): 7.
Abstract (summary)
Each service has priorities that can be addressed by the NAI. An Army goal in national missile defense, for instance, might be to use a fast-flying missile to engage a cruise missile at greater distances "so that [if] there's a chemical or biological weapon onboard, it is intercepted farther away," [Ron Sega] said. The Navy might want to have ships standing farther off a hostile shore "and still get to [a land] target in the same time." Similarly, the Air Force might want to "engage targets at a faster speed and therefore reduced time."
Stressing a different kind of speed, and indicating how a coordinated government effort can quickly benefit warfighters, Sega described the rapid development of the thermobaric bomb that was used in Afghanistan. Approval to proceed was granted 10 days after the Sept. 11 terror attacks; small quantity lab testing was carried out in October; a full-up static test took place Nov. 17, and a flight test was conducted in Nevada on Dec. 14. First combat use followed shortly thereafter.
The other is Power and Energy Technologies, aimed at enabling an "electric air force." The emphasis here is on power generation, including nuclear, diesel, jet, solar array and fuel cell technologies; energy storage, focusing on batteries, flywheels and capacitors; power management and control, emphasizing energy conversion and catapults; anddirected energy weapons, overseeing laser, microwave and similar technologies.
Full Text
The Department of Defense's National Aerospace Initiative is aimed at expanding and interweaving a current base of technologies to go in stepping-stone fashion from hypersonic vehicles, to regular and easy access to space, and finally to advanced space technologies such as multifunction satellites, according to a top Pentagon official.
Ron Sega, director of defense research and engineering, said if the technologies are viewed in a coordinated way, and supported in the near-, mid- and long-term, "you get some synergies, particularly for the longer term, because you know where you're going."
Speaking at the recent National Space Symposium in Colorado Springs, Sega gave the most detailed account to date of the initiative.
He stressed linkages among technologies, saying, for instance, that while hypersonic vehicles flying at ever greater Mach numbers steadily increase the chances of knocking out fleeting targets, they also help in terms of access to space.
"If we can do this efficiently - going from hypersonics to space access to space technology - we may even view the way we do the space piece a different way, because you have helped yourself out in terms of access and how you would maneuver between the interface of higher density atmosphere and lower density atmosphere," he said.
"The idea," he said, "is one-plus-one plus-one would be greater than three."
The approach over the last several months has been to bring relevant portions of the government aerospace community together through a series of workshops to define challenges, goals, investment plans and roadmaps, Sega said.
Each service has priorities that can be addressed by the NAI. An Army goal in national missile defense, for instance, might be to use a fast-flying missile to engage a cruise missile at greater distances "so that [if] there's a chemical or biological weapon onboard, it is intercepted farther away," Sega said. The Navy might want to have ships standing farther off a hostile shore "and still get to [a land] target in the same time." Similarly, the Air Force might want to "engage targets at a faster speed and therefore reduced time."
Thermobaric bomb
Stressing a different kind of speed, and indicating how a coordinated government effort can quickly benefit warfighters, Sega described the rapid development of the thermobaric bomb that was used in Afghanistan. Approval to proceed was granted 10 days after the Sept. 11 terror attacks; small quantity lab testing was carried out in October; a full-up static test took place Nov. 17, and a flight test was conducted in Nevada on Dec. 14. First combat use followed shortly thereafter.
"The system by which we did that - bringing people together and accelerating a technical development from a strong science and technology base to a fielded system - is something that's probably more important and more enduring than" the weapon itself, Sega said.
For now, he said, the emphasis in NAI is on gathering information "and focusing on what we currently have in technology and where we should be going in the future that makes sense from a technological point of view. ..." Industry will be involved in the "next stage," he said.
Two other "strategic initiatives" in addition to NAI are being supported by executives running the Defense Department's science and technology programs.
One is Surveillance and Knowledge Systems, which focuses on sensors and unmanned aerial vehicles; high bandwidth communications and information assurance; management of information, and cyber warfare.
The other is Power and Energy Technologies, aimed at enabling an "electric air force." The emphasis here is on power generation, including nuclear, diesel, jet, solar array and fuel cell technologies; energy storage, focusing on batteries, flywheels and capacitors; power management and control, emphasizing energy conversion and catapults; anddirected energy weapons, overseeing laser, microwave and similar technologies.
Underlying all three initiatives is a philosophy outlined in the Pentagon's recent Quadrennial Defense Review - that, in Sega's words, "this century is different than the last century. It's characterized by an in increasing dynamic, more uncertainty, a rapid rate of change."
Thus, he said, "It's important to have more options available for the warfighter, and "we look for ... increased knowledge, speed, agility, lethality that would contribute to a wider option space and [yield] greater capabilities to address an uncertain future."
x73 Fulghum, David a; Barrie, Douglas : U.K. Developing, Testing Directed Energy Weapon
2002-07
Abstract:
Britain has developed and successfully tested a prototype directed energy weapon package applicable for use on unmanned air vehicles or standoff cruise missiles, with some of the weapon tests carried out in the U.S. The defense ministry program to develop the high-power microwave (HPM) payload was underway by the mid-1990s. The payload is intended as a weapon for use against a target set including command and control, communications, and air defense assets. The intent of an HPM weapon is to create an intense power surge in electrical systems, ideally causing permanent, irreparable damage. A potential candidate platform, were the U.K. to operationally deploy an HPM weapon, would be the Storm Shadow cruise missile, which will enter service with the British Royal Air Force before the end of 2002.
Full text:
Britain has developed and successfully tested a prototype directed energy weapon package applicable for use on unmanned air vehicles or standoff cruise missiles, with some of the weapon tests carried out in the U.S.
The defense ministry program to develop the high-power microwave (HPM) payload was underway by the mid-1990s. The payload is intended as a weapon for use against a target set including: command and control, communications, and air defense assets. It is conceivable a prototype HPM weapon could be fielded, if required, within the coming months.
Trials of the HPM payload have been carried out, with the directed energy weapon package flown in a test delivery vehicle. At least some of the trials were carried out on U.S. ranges, reflecting U.S. interest in the weapon.
Development of the HPM payload is believed to have involved U.K. government research laboratories and British industry. The payload was sized for Ryan Aeronautical's (now Northrop Grumman) BQM-145A medium-range UAV. The high-speed low-flying UAVs used could either be ground launched or dropped from an F/A-18-size aircraft.
One U.S. source suggested there was U.S. Navy interest in pursuing a joint program, but it remains uncertain as to the extent, if any, of continuing U.K.-U.S. collaboration.
The intent of an HPM weapon is to create an intense power surge in electrical systems, ideally causing permanent, irreparable damage.
British industry leaders readily admit to an interest in directed energy weapons; however, they decline to discuss any specific aspects of work they might be pursuing.
Five of the BQ-145A UAVs were turned over to the U.S. Air Force and are held by the UAV Battle Lab at Eglin AFB, Fla. Tests of the British payload were considered much more promising than an earlier test at Eglin that used modified air-launched cruise missiles. They were designed to produce a pulse of microwave energy when high explosives wrapped around a coil generating an electrical field were detonated.
A potential candidate platform, were the U.K. to operationally deploy an HPM weapon, would be the Storm Shadow cruise missile, which will enter service with the British Royal Air Force before the end of 2002.
``In the U.S., there has been a lot of research into DE [directed energy],'' a senior British industry official said. ``Fortunately, in the U.K. there has been some equivalent investment as well, so we are better placed than some of our [European] colleagues.''
Germany has also been looking at HPM payloads for UAV applications. Manfred Lehnigk, an executive with Germany's STN Atlas Electronik, builder of the Taifun UAV, said that his company is looking at an HPM weapon for unmanned aircraft, but it will likely take a minimum of five years to turn the system into payload.
``The UCAV programs are highly classified, but we have taken the cover off various other projects, like HPM artillery shells, just to demonstrate that we are actively involved in all sorts of active variants of [electronic]-kill mechanisms.''
However, he warned, the need for miniaturization and large power requirements will continue to dog delivery of airborne DE systems.
``I think increasingly you'll see the importance of being able to interrupt communications, be it command and control or straight communications processes,'' Lehnigk said.
``You will see continued focus on the disruptive soft kill. We've already seen examples, like Kosovo, where various non-destructive weapons were deployed to knock out electric power on a temporary basis,'' he said.
HPM also holds promise for attacking hardened and underground targets.
``To get at a 100-meter-deep target, explosives may not be the answer,'' the British official said. ``If you want to get underground, you have to start from the surface to get there. So you look at power lines, antennas, water pipes and ingress and egress sites'' where metallic structures would conduct pulses of energy deep into the structure to damage sensitive electronics concealed there.
The U.S. has largely decided to use lasers from manned aircraft and HPM from unmanned (the latter in case fly-by-wire flight controls are damaged by the energy pulse). British researchers say they think there is a useful role for HPM from manned aircraft, but demur from being more specific, citing security restraints.
British timelines for having tactically representative directed energy weapons roughly parallel those of the U.S. with which there appear to be some collaborative efforts.
``Reusable HPM will be demonstrated in a couple of years and laser weapons a few years beyond that,'' said one British official. But unlike the U.S., there's ``not the [single] concentration on disposable DE weapons'' that could be mounted in cruise missiles or some type of bomb, he said, adding ``we want reusable directed energy devices.''
Photograph
Photograph: The Storm Shadow cruise missile, shown carried by a Tornado, is shortly to enter service. It could provide a delivery vehicle for a directed energy payload.
Subject: Military weapons; Prototypes; Microwaves; Defense industry
Location: United Kingdom, UK
Classification: 9175: Western Europe; 9550: Public sector; 8680: Transportation equipment industry
Publication title: Aviation Week & Space Technology
Volume: 157
Issue: 5
Pages: 26
Number of pages: 0
Publication year: 2002
Publication date: July 29, 2002
x74 Fulghum, David a. : Lasers Being Developed For F-35 and AC-130: Directed-energy devices are emerging from the `black' world as weapons for manned and unmanned aircraft
2002-07
Aviation Week & Space Technology 157.2 (July 8, 2002): 32-33.
Abstract (summary)
Lockheed Martin is tailoring a laser for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter that could be ready as early as 2010 for demonstration and the start of a full-scale development program. An advantage of a directed-energy weapon is that it can shoot indefinitely and is limited only by the ability to cool it, and it is covert. There is no huge explosion associated with its employment. The damage is very localized, and it is hard to tell where it came from and when it happened. Planners envision scenarios where fires are set, electronic components are damaged and computer memories are erased with no collateral damage or injury to those near the target.
Full Text
Lockheed Martin is tailoring a laser for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter that could be ready as early as 2010 for demonstration and the start of a full-scale development program.
Variants of the solid-state laser, powered by a drive shaft from an aircraft's engine instead of batteries, also are being considered for use on AC-130 gunships and Lockheed Martin-designed unmanned aircraft. The high-energy laser system is being designed in a joint project with Raytheon.
An advantage of a directed-energy weapon is that it can shoot indefinitely and is limited only by the ability to cool it, and it's covert. ``There's no huge explosion associated with its employment,'' a Lockheed Martin official said. ``There are no pieces and parts left behind that someone can analyze to say, `This came from the U.S.' The damage is very localized, and it's hard to tell where it came from and when it happened. It's all pretty mysterious.''
A foe would be left largely clueless trying to analyze what happened and why. Planners envision scenarios where fires are set, electronic components are damaged and computer memories are erased with no collateral damage or injury to those near the target.
A Defense Science Board study last year said that several technology breakthroughs have moved high-energy lasers on fighters into the realm of the possible. Among them was increased electrical power-generation capability achieved under the ``More-Electric Aircraft Project.'' The DSB contends that aircraft systems will be able to provide one megawatt of power in less than five years. Other rapidly developing technologies allow smaller packaging of systems. These include advanced solid-state lasers, chemical lasers with electro-regeneration of chemicals and fiber lasers.
The technical hurdles include compensating for vibrations and high g-forces that can punish the laser and beam-control system and turbulence around the aircraft. ``The beam control system must be extremely dynamic to account for these fast transient processes occurring at kilohertz rates,'' the report said.
Lockheed Martin looked at laser concepts from TRW, Boeing and Textron, but Raytheon's appeared to be the most advanced, a company official said. Raytheon's solid-state design is ``particularly suitable for JSF because it's very compact and shows promise for achieving the necessary power levels and beam quality,'' the Lockheed Martin official said. ``The other companies don't appear to feel as confident in their ability to buy or develop a suitable laser.'' Company officials are also hoping that the Air Force Research Laboratory's directed-energy directorate at Kirtland AFB, N.M., or the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency would fund some of the solid-state laser development.
A first-generation laser weapon would be able to engage aerial targets such as cruise missiles and enemy aircraft, as well as ground targets such as antiaircraft missile sites and ground vehicles. These capabilities would likely require laser power of 100 kw., analysts predict.
``That's about the minimum threshold to be a weapon,'' the Lockheed Martin official said. ``Less than that and it's only useful against soft targets. One hundred kilowatts would also let targets be engaged at tactically significant ranges.''
Except for self-defense, laser weapon designers think the minimum effective range is about 6 mi. for a fighter aircraft. As the power of solid-state lasers improves with the maturation of new technology, the range of directed-energy weapons would increase. Ideally, the laser-equipped aircraft would also carry conventional munitions. The F-35, for example, won't give up any weapon-carriage capability when the laser is installed, and it will allow a combination of effects. Lasers can provide low collateral damage and covert attack. Conventional weapons would provide longer range strike.
``Laser and HPM [high-power microwave] weapons are more like an avionics system,'' a company official said. ``You don't go out, drop three and go home. It's always on the air vehicle, you use it when you want and, at least with solid-state technology, you're not going to run out of power.''
The concept for F-35 is to have a turret, centered on the lift-fan cavity, which would extend when needed from the bottom of the aircraft. The system would be installed in the space just aft of the cockpit that was carved out to hold the vertical lift fan. With a single turret, the directed-energy weapon would be most effective against ground targets, low-flying airborne targets and for self-defense.
While conceptually the one-turret aircraft could be maneuvered to fire at other aircraft or air-to-air missiles, planners are dubious. ``There's not always time to maneuver, especially in close-in self-defense situations, so you want multiple apertures,'' a Lockheed Martin official said. Therefore, company designers are considering a second turret that would extend from the top of the lift-fan space to cover the upper hemisphere around the aircraft. They don't yet know if they can make both turrets fit into the space that they must share with target trackers, laser, optics, power and cooling. ``It will be a trade of coverage versus internal volume,'' he said. There also would be the option of flying a mix of aircraft, some specialized for air-to-air and others for ground attack. For demonstration purposes, the laser system would likely be installed first on a pod and later on an early model JSF airframe.
Lockheed Martin believes it has a distinct advantage in getting directed-energy weapons into the field because the F-35's unique design will allow it to supply a great deal of electrical power. Instead of having to rely on heavy, short-lived batteries to run the laser, it will be fed electrical power generated by a drive shaft run from the main engine. In the Marine Corps' short-takeoff, vertical-landing version of the F-35, the drive shaft will power the vertical lift fan. But for the Air Force and Navy versions, the empty spaces designed for the lift fan and cannon could be used for the laser weapon.
``The drive shaft has the [potential] of producing multi-megawatts of power in real time without hurting the aircraft's performance,'' the Lockheed Martin official said. The shaft from the engine can produce more than 27,000 shp. to drive a generator. But the rate of fire and recycle time for a laser weapon, particularly against targets at long range, may be limited by the need for thermal cooling. ``You can't fire forever,'' he said. ``The challenge is doing the cooling in near real time.'' What the duty cycle will be has still to be determined, but some specialists suggest that at least initially it might be a 4-sec. burst, followed by 4 sec. of cooling, then another 4-sec. burst and finally a 30-sec. cool-down before engaging two more targets.
Directed-energy, self-defense weapons with a fast recycle time for multiple shots (since two or more antiaircraft missiles are usually fired together) is considered a key concept for future warfare. By 2025, many U.S. Air Force planners believe multispectral sensor technology will overtake the ability of stealth designs to protect aircraft from air defenses.
Directed-energy weapons fall into two categories so far: high-energy lasers and HPM. Farther in the future is a plasma of ionized gas molecules that might resemble a bolt of lightning.
Lasers use thermal effects to quickly blow holes in targets, and they are being designed for use in manned aircraft, say Air Force and aerospace industry officials. A laser beam can be focused on a fuel tank to produce catastrophic damage, or it can be focused on a vehicle's engine to simply disable it. Generally, however, it is a lethal, longer range weapon.
HPM is most effective in attacking electronics, particularly computers where spikes of high power can damage components and erase computer memories. This kind of technology is seen as the weapon of choice for unmanned aircraft because spurious emissions might affect safety of flight.
Photograph
Photograph: Lockheed Martin produced this artist's rendering of a laser-weapon-equipped F-35. Lasers will be put on manned aircraft, while the tougher to control high-power microwave weapons are slated for unmanned combat vehicles.
x75 Fulghum, David A. : UCAVs Also Tagged To Carry Energy Weapons
2002-07
Aviation Week & Space Technology 157.2 (July 8, 2002): 33.
Abstract (summary)
With an eye to carving its niche in a new market, Lockheed Martin plans to put directed-energy weapons on its own unmanned air vehicle concepts. The concept competes with Northrop Grumman's, the Navy-backed X-47 unmanned combat air vehicle that can be flown from aircraft carriers, and Boeing's, the Air Force's X-45, which has been test-flown.
Full Text
With an eye to carving its niche in a new market, Lockheed Martin plans to put directed-energy weapons on ``our own unmanned air vehicle concepts,'' a company official said.
The concept competes with Northrop Grumman's, the Navy-backed X-47 unmanned combat air vehicle (UCAV) that can be flown from aircraft carriers, and Boeing's, the Air Force's X-45, which has been test-flown. The Boeing aircraft is already being designed to carry a high-power microwave (HPM) device as an ``anti-electronics'' weapon.
The company's unique twist is to use a drive shaft from the UCAV's propulsion engine for electrical power generation instead of using heavy, limited power batteries. The concept has been deemed successful on the F-35, so now Lockheed Martin is designing it into UCAVs (programs that are closely held) to power directed-energy weapons. With batteries, the weapon would put out only ``a squirt or two'' of microwave pulses before the on-board power source is depleted, said a senior Air Force official. Moreover, the expensive batteries would have to be replaced often, perhaps monthly. With a shaft-driven power source, more targets could be struck.
High-power microwaves (spikes of power much like the energy generated by radars) are primarily thought of as an anti-electronics weapon. While a laser is a low-frequency weapon that requires a few seconds to inflict the necessary damage, HPM consists of high-frequency energy pulses that require only milliseconds to create the needed effect.
HPM comes in several variants for producing a range of effects. It is a short-range device for disabling equipment. Because the weapon is designed to produce the equivalent of electromagnetic interference (EMI) to upset and damage enemy electronics, officials are concerned that it might occasionally produce similar effects in the host aircraft.
``With existing aircraft, you might commit suicide because of the skin currents and EMI produced by firing an HPM weapon,'' a Lockheed Martin official said. ``It's more prudent to use purpose-built unmanned aircraft, although you still can't afford to lose very many.''
This worry about unintended effects on the host aircraft has relegated HPM to UCAVs and a series of expendable weapons being developed in classified programs. HPM is considered effective against enemy computers and other electronic systems if fired at short range--another reason to fit them into unmanned aircraft and standoff missiles.
HPM also can be used as active denial or antipersonnel weapons. A Marine Corps program is developing a truck-mounted system that heats water in the skin to painful levels to make crowds flee or disperse.
The Air Force is exploring HPM as a weapon to attack underground and deeply buried targets that are immune to high explosives. Pulses of microwave energy can be transmitted deep into a facility through antennas, fresh-air conduits and water pipes. Once inside, the pulses move into electronic equipment or erase and scramble computer memories and damage components.
x76 Fulghum, David a; Wall, Robert : Raytheon Links Future To Network Prowess:
2002-07
Aviation Week & Space Technology 157.4 (July 22, 2002): 167-169.
In the two years since the last Farnborough air show, European defense companies have made great strides toward integrating operations, and governments are beginning to seriously recognize the capabilities gap between their military forces and those of the U.S. Western military planners also have broadly embraced the need to more tightly integrate systems. Raytheon provides one example of a U.S. defense company that is coming to grips with new technical challenges posed by integrated, network-centric operations and the evolving transatlantic business climate.
Abstract (summary)
Faced with increasingly effective competition at home and in Europe, Raytheon strategists are fine-tuning their company's focus on delivering networked systems in addition to production of components that others can integrate. Raytheon, like other large, defense-oriented aerospace companies, knows the future is inextricably tied to what is often called network- or information-centric warfare, and that any large corporation's long-term success will depend less and less on new missiles or aircraft designs. Instead, the company has made a major commitment to growth through developing and linking new technologies such as laser and microwave weapons, multispectral sensors and clever algorithms that can sift the crucial crumbs of intelligence from masses of surveillance data. During its consolidation period, the company suffered several programmatic setbacks including cancellation of the Navy area-wide missile defense project. Being able to deliver on the promise of improved performance by exploiting the potential growth area of networked solutions will be crucial for Raytheon's corporate leadership goal of placating skeptics on Wall Street.
Full Text
Faced with increasingly effective competition at home and in Europe, Raytheon strategists are fine-tuning their company's focus on delivering networked systems in addition to production of components that others can integrate.
Raytheon, like other large, defense-oriented aerospace companies, knows the future is inextricably tied to what is often called network- or information-centric warfare, and that any large corporation's long-term success will depend less and less on new missiles or aircraft designs.
Instead, the company has made a major commitment to growth through developing and linking new technologies such as laser and microwave weapons, multispectral sensors and clever algorithms that can sift the crucial crumbs of intelligence from masses of surveillance data. They've decided to treat platforms as interchangeable pieces for carrying various parts of an integrated ``kill chain.''
During its consolidation period, the company suffered several programmatic setbacks including cancellation of the Navy area-wide missile defense project, a loss in the U.S. Air Force's small-diameter bomb competition and being dropped from the Pentagon's unmanned combat aircraft contest at the prime contractor level. Moreover, the company's overall performance has lagged compared with its some of its competitors (AW&ST July 1, p. 48).
Being able to deliver on the promise of improved performance by exploiting the potential growth area of ``networked solutions'' will be crucial for Raytheon's corporate leadership goal of placating skeptics on Wall Street. Some analysts have been frustrated by the company's perceived financial underperformance, particularly after Raytheon acquired defense units from Hughes and Texas Instruments. Debt continues to hover at the $8-billion mark with a dept-to-capital ratio of almost 40%. If emphasis on the ``kill chain'' doesn't improve Raytheon's bottom line, it could raise the question of what will.
A cornerstone of Raytheon's new approach is ``precision strike'' which is a critical growth area for the company.
At its Tucson facility, the company touts its ability to do everything in a weapons program from design through development, manufacturing, integration, testing and shipment directly to a combat theater, said Louise Francesconi, vice president of Raytheon Missile Systems business unit. That should be an advantage over its European competitors, company officials indicated, since they still operate with multiple sites. Another company official contended that Raytheon's emphasis on development of all elements of the kill chain in a single company is also an advantage that can't be matched overseas.
At its facilities in El Segundo and Dallas, the company also does cradle-to-grave work, including some groundbreaking efforts on fusing data from electro-optical and infrared sensors with imagery from synthetic aperture radar and flash ladar to increase the intelligence yield for time-critical targeting. Intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance systems like the sensor suite for Global Hawk and the multispectral target system for Predator are developed at both sites along with advanced, jam-resistant GPS technologies for precision-guided munitions.
Partnering is another element of Raytheon's European strategy. That approach proved successful in winning the Astor program, designed to provide Britain an airborne ground surveillance radar capability. The company is also in the competition for Britain's precision-guided bomb program.
``In regard to Europe, sometimes we cooperate, sometimes we compete,'' Francesconi said. ``You have to understand each scenario, each weapon requirement and the dynamic each partnership offers to really compete in the European environment.''
A critical advantage for the U.S. company over its European rivals is the number of research and development activities it can participate in. ``The striking difference between us and our European counterparts is largely our partnership with the government [through] Darpa, AFRL, NRL [Air Force Research Laboratory, Naval Research Laboratory] where technologies integral to every one of these aspects are worked in the near- and long-term at every level,'' said Frank Fleischer, director of business development for Raytheon Electronic Systems. ``That's hard to duplicate beyond the U.S. Our position in the world market is fundamental to working with the government at the research level because they are poking at things 20 years out, so it helps us to find technology issues and information problems. That's a leadership technology area you can't duplicate.''
Raytheon officials also insist that the pains from consolidation in the past few years are behind them and that the new organization is bearing fruit. ``Now we can designate a business unit to lead, but draw resources from everywhere there is expertise,'' Francesconi said. ``The precision strike initiative is a classic example. It involves very broad-scope capabilities that now have a focal point. That wouldn't have been possible 2.5 years ago.''
Directed energy weapons, both high-power microwaves (HPM) and lasers, are at the forefront of the company's planning for future investments. ``We believe they are a critical element of how ultimately wars will be fought,'' Francesconi said. ``HPM is the most mature right now. We're exploring platforms, uses, system concepts and concept of operations for [battlefield use]. On the laser side, the work is more involved in packaging and thermal management, [and refining] optics and lasers.''
Raytheon also plans to move aggressively into development of avionics technologies for UCAVs such as airborne radars, electronic warfare systems, electro-optical and infrared sensors and laser designators. It is already a partner on Boeing's X-45 and one of four bidders for the U.S. Army/Darpa unmanned combat rotorcraft.
Like its effort to take a dominant position in the directed energy field, Raytheon has also picked UCAVs as a focal point. ``We're going to treat it much the same, and it's going to have an executive focus so we really understand the market and where the technology's going,'' Francesconi said. ``The question now is the size of the platform and its use. A key difference is that they will base their designs on smaller size, less-expensive UCAVs. The approach mirrors recent statements by Air Force Secretary James G. Roche about wanting to move away from buying additional large UAV and UCAVs. The escalating price of the Global Hawk has been a particularly contentious issue for the Air Force. ``Because there may be more focus on small [vehicles], I think we have a reentry point [for UCAV development],'' Francesconi said.
Raytheon is so committed to the next generation of systems for unmanned vehicles that it has established the Unmanned Combat Vehicle organization to serve as a single focal point. It will pull together future systems including weapons, communications and sensors. The UCV organization is already at work on a UCAV line as well as the Army's Unmanned Combat Armed Rotorcraft program.
In addition, UCAV could provide the springboard to fielding new directed energy weapons. ``We see UCAV as the first, most viable opportunity for a directed energy weapon,'' Francesconi said. Researchers contend that HPMs are particularly effective against radar components and have the ability to erase or scramble computer memories. ``That's still being sorted out. We're very interested in whether it goes on a UCAV or a Tomahawk.''
But Raytheon's planners also point out that no one product should dominate the company's portfolio. They also will strike for a balance between production and development of new products.
``We're trying to leverage our technology developments to bring products quickly to the marketplace,'' said Jack Pearson, vice president of Raytheon's air combat and strike systems. ``We're focusing our technology roadmaps around standard product architecture--such as common processors, focal plane arrays and GPS guidance--so we can take advantage of our large portfolio.''
To optimize the effects of a weapon, or to decide if it should even be dropped, the entire precision engagement chain must be addressed, but without incurring huge new costs, Pearson said. By focusing attention on all elements of the end-to-end process, the planners believe they can ``invest once and apply [the results] to two or three programs.''
Missile Systems at Raytheon's Tucson facility, for example, identified 13 technology investments it has leveraged to other users in the company. These include lasers, laser radar, infrared detectors, advanced materials, RF components, transmitters, amplifiers, transmit and receive modules, uncooled infrared, molecular beam steering and focusing technology, low-cost transceivers, composite radomes and low-cost packaging.
The 21st century technologies that Raytheon believes will spell corporate success include tools for gathering, sorting and moving information and fielding energy weapons that will disable--at the speed of light--missiles, spacecraft, or even computers hidden in underground facilities at ranges from a few hundred yards (high-power microwaves against computers) to a few hundred miles (lasers against space boost vehicles).
The issue riveting everyone's attention is how to link all the current and future components into an affordable network that will allow a small, modern military force to win its battles. Over the next few years, a survivable military force will have to move from its current focus on ``platform-centric'' operations to what's being called ``interconnected-centric'' where the potential of gathering and moving information quickly is understood and at least partially in place, said Jim Wolf, manager of advanced programs for Raytheon Electronic Systems.
Laser radar is one of the key technologies mentioned for leveraging across the company. ``You get reams of information from ladar,'' Wolf said. ``That's the beauty of it. There's a mountain of data. The problem is that I have to figure out how to process it fast enough to use it in real time. I'm not loitering. I've got to prosecute the target. That requires a systems-level trade,'' he said.
The ultimate goal, perhaps within the next decade or two, is an ``information-centric'' force that can continuously monitor large areas, comb them for targets or intelligence, speed key data to shooters and immediately tally the result of strikes.
Despite a common vision, there is still debate in the industry about ``what is the right technology, the right vision, the right network . . . and what are the trades,'' Wolf said. ``We need a vision of what the battle space is going to look like in 5, 10 or 20 years.''
The central problem facing planners is balancing the expense of building a gigantic network, refining its links and then fielding a family of small, simple, low-cost precision weapons to attack the targets.
As a background to such calculations, planners must, all the while, be realistic about the handicaps under which an allied force will operate. Its political mandate will largely prohibit allied casualties and strictly limit the damage that is deemed fair to inflict on a foe. Collateral damage will be a crucial consideration in any war plan, and all this must be done with an eye to the whimsy of year-to-year, administration-to-administration funding priorities.
Photograph
Photograph: Precision targeting made enormous strides in the last decade. Labs and intelligence networking contribute to designing enhanced accuracy for advanced weapons.
Photograph
Photograph: Intelligence networking and a kill chain that operates within 15 min. is considered essential to combat the lethal lineup of air defense weapons on the world market.
Photograph
Photograph: Companies see their future tied to integrated products ranging from sensors that first detect an object to a post-strike analysis of a weapon's effectiveness.
x77 Fulghum, David a. : Lasers, HPM Weapons Near Operational Status
2002-07
Aviation Week & Space Technology 157.4 (July 22, 2002): 173-174.
Abstract (summary)
Directed energy weapons - lasers and high-power microwaves - are emerging from the black world of classified projects as the time nears for their debut on aircraft, vehicles, ships and eventually even spacecraft. The first combat applications, probably involving high-power microwaves (HPM) used as antielectronics weapons, will appear within the next 4-5 years, say top Raytheon officials. A short, intense energy surge can scramble computer memories and damage electronic components. Raytheon is already involved in most of the major directed energy programs. The company is two years into a project that would put a laser weapon on Lockheed Martin's multiservice, F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. It also is one of the contractors asked to study the design of a high-power microwave weapon for Boeing's X-45 unmanned combat air vehicle (UCAV).
Full Text
Directed energy weapons--lasers and high-power microwaves--are emerging from the black world of classified projects as the time nears for their debut on aircraft, vehicles, ships and eventually even spacecraft.
The first combat applications, probably involving high-power microwaves (HPM) used as antielectronics weapons, will appear within the next 4-5 years, say top Raytheon officials. A short, intense energy surge can scramble computer memories and damage electronic components.
Raytheon is already involved in most of the major directed energy programs. The company is two years into a project that would put a laser weapon on Lockheed Martin's multiservice, F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. It also is one of the contractors asked to study the design of a high-power microwave weapon for Boeing's X-45 unmanned combat air vehicle (UCAV). Moreover, it has won the DD-X contract for next-generation U.S. Navy ships. Its electric drive will one day power a laser-based air defense system.
In the future, ``our strategy is simple,'' said Mike Booen, head of Raytheon Electronic System's directed energy programs. ``We want to replace high explosives with directed energy weapons [DEW]. Any munitions or platforms that carry high explosives, we want to replace with DEW. We want to enable new missions where . . . high explosives [are called for but can't be used] because of problems of collateral damage or the need for a facility after the conflict.''
While Pentagon acquisition officials are cautious of the new technologies and want demonstrations of its capabilities, the trends are already in place. ``You only have to look at science and technology funding in the current budget planning,'' Booen said. ``If you plot what is being invested in traditional precision munitions, you see a down slope. If you look at how much the Defense Dept. is investing in directed energy, it's on an up slope. People are recognizing that directed energy will start going on all sorts of platforms as the next step in munitions. And technology is mature enough that it's now only a configuration change, not a leap in physics.''
One of the significant problems is scaling up the output of directed energy weapons.
``Power is king,'' Booen said. ``Distance is the trade space.'' Therefore, close-range missions will likely emerge first. They would include the self-defense of manned aircraft air- and ground-launched missiles and the use of unmanned aircraft that can fly close to anti-aircraft defenses. ``The bottom line is that there are mission areas where you do not have to wait until you have a megawatt of laser power on your aircraft to do militarily important things,'' he said.
Laser weapons produce very small, precise beams of energy that can physically damage aircraft as well as cruise and ballistic missiles, set fire to ground structures or, with less power, befuddle missile guidance systems with false targets.
HPM have broader beams that can be used, for example, to heat the water in a person's skin to unendurable levels as a crowd-dispersion device. At higher power, it becomes a weapon that can erase computer memories and damage communications and other battlefield electronic devices. Several HPM projects are underway to test their effectiveness against underground and deeply buried targets that are immune to conventional bombs.
Designers, at least for the present, have chosen to put laser weapons on manned aircraft and HPM on unmanned aircraft because of the possibility that the latter's less-precisely-focused output or its electrical side lobes might affect the UCAV's flight systems and cause it to become uncontrollable. Currently the weapon is being designed for a later, Block 30 version of the Air Force UCAV.
As directed energy weapons emerge, so too, will the rules of engagement which shape their use and design. Israel, a leader in military innovation, is largely putting off development of such weapons except in an antimissile role. One of the country's military technologists said they are concerned that using an HPM weapon, for example, could be mired in legal reviews since it might result in new, unanticipated types of collateral damage. While HPM targets electronics and humans, it could also disrupt electricity to a hospital or even affect individuals with pacemakers. None of these issues have been completely thought through, he said.
Developers and the military are still loath to talk about these technologies but evidence about the technologies involved in directed energy weapons and platforms has emerged that are expected to carry them. The aerospace industry also is at work on simulating and modeling the effects of such weaponry. Raytheon, for example, has been developing advanced algorithms and computer tools for two years at its simulation facility in Tucson.
There also appears to be a growing sophistication in how potential military customers are approaching DEW. Initially, customers were interested in individual pieces of hardware, said Louise Francesconi, vice president of Raytheon Missile Systems' business unit. That is no longer the case. Interest now is focused on integrated solutions that include not just the laser or HPM weapon, but also sensor and battle management functions, she said.
DEW technology has been gathering momentum with the construction of powerful solid-state lasers that can be used in the development of small weapons. Solid-state technology also offers fewer environmental concerns than chemical lasers like those in the U.S. Air Force's YAL-1A airborne laser aircraft which requires a Boeing 747 to carry the long-range laser device and huge amounts of toxic chemicals aloft.
However, there is interest in larger, non-airborne directed energy weapons that can fire repeatedly in short periods of intense combat against, for example, a wave of low-flying, high-speed cruise missiles. The Navy's new ship design, DD-X, which was awarded to Raytheon, will have an electric drive capable of producing the massive power necessary to run a self-defense system that can shoot down aircraft, large numbers of very-high-speed surface-skimming cruise missiles and, eventually, ballistic missiles. Electric drive ships are the perfect platform for weapons that must fire quickly and repeatedly. But, for the aviation community, the necessity for small payload packages for both laser and HPM weapons that may only need to produce a few pulses of energy during each mission as it attacks other aircraft, missiles or ground targets, will remain.
Boeing is working with U.S. Special Operations Command on the Advanced Tactical Laser to develop a medium-power laser using uncooled optics on a CV-22 tiltrotor, AC-130 gunship or MH-47 helicopter. The device is intended for attacking targets with lethal and non-lethal forces at ranges of up to 10 mi.
Another near-term project is development of a laser weapon envisioned for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. Some of the problems of a small payload are reduced because the aircraft already has a drive shaft from the engine to the bay just behind the cockpit that could be used to produce the electrical energy needed to power a directed energy device. When needed, the area holds a lift fan used for vertical flight. But for other versions of the manned aircraft, the space can be used for a laser weapon using shaft-generated electrical power.
Raytheon has to complete the solutions to two technology problems as they create a powerful laser weapon for the F-35.
First, they have to scale up the power output of their solid-state lasers from about 10 kw. to about 100 kw. in order to kill targets at a tactically significant range. Some analysts set the mark at about 10 km. (6.2 mi.). A solid-state laser is needed for the F-35 ``because its going to be sold in large numbers, it has to be easily maintainable and it must operate without a chemical farm going in and lots of toxic residue coming out,'' a Lockheed Martin official said. ``Right now solid-state lasers don't exist at the power level and beam quality [needed].''
Second, they have to keep the laser beam focused over those long distances.
``The air around a fighter is pretty disturbed because you're trying to operate at around Mach 1,'' he said. ``That, in turn, will disturb the laser beam as you fire it to the target. The air density and the shocks coming off the air vehicle will distort the beam. As part of our laser concept, we will employ adaptive optics to sense what the distortion is and use a conformal mirror. The mirror will predistort the beam so that as it goes through the disturbed air it corrects itself.'' Mirror technology is being developed in the airborne laser project which uses deformable mirrors to limit defraction of the laser over its 250-mi. range.
HPM (which produce spikes of power much like energy generated by radars) is primarily thought of as an anti-electronics weapon. While a laser is a low-frequency weapon requiring perhaps 4 sec. to inflict the necessary damage, HPM consists of high-frequency energy pulses that need only milliseconds to create the needed effect.
An advantage of HPM is that the technology is more mature than solid-state, high-energy lasers. ``HPM will proceed the solid-state lasers by a few years,'' a senior Raytheon official said. ``We have focused a lot of new people and dollars on the technology. But the race is between directed energy technologies and the platforms. If we had a DEW available today, we couldn't fly it because [the Air Force and Navy] don't have a UCAV.
``But the intersection of DEW and UCAVs is a perfect marriage and a growth area. That's how you can prosecute the war in a heavily defended area. Look at the missions for UCAV. Suppression of air defense is number one. You don't want your pilots shot down. You can speculate on what an antielectronics weapon could do to electronics on a SAM battery or an air operations center.''
The Air Force's UCAV that will evolve from Boeing's X-45 program will have the added problem of providing a large enough power supply to drive an HPM device. Part of the solution is achieved by putting the DE weapon on an unmanned aircraft that can fly very close to a well-defended target before loosing its pulse of microwaves, without endangering an aircrew. The effectiveness of an HPM weapon decreases by the square of its distance from the target.
``Where we can pull power off the engine we will,'' Booen said. Lockheed Martin intends to use that strategy with its UCAV designs. ``But in many configurations, we do plan on using batteries. You will see HPM applications within the next 4-5 years.''
Photograph
Photograph: One concept for an aircraft with directed energy weapons shows a laser being fired from the aft position in a C-130 and a high-power microwave device from forward of the wing.
Photograph
Photograph: An anti-personnel device using high-power microwaves to heat water in the skin can inflict enough pain to cause crowds to disperse.
x78 Robert Wall and David a. Fulghum : New, Shared Technology To Sustain Weapons Edge
2002-07
Aviation Week & Space Technology 157.4 (July 22, 2002): 191-192.
Abstract (summary)
Faced with increasing competition in its munitions business domestically and abroad, Raytheon is looking for ways to leverage its existing precision-strike projects to win new customers and develop weapons that will secure the long-term financial health of the business. One of the large thrusts for Raytheon's munitions business will be to share components across products, such as focal plane arrays, processors, guidance and navigation subsystems. It is argued that the strategy reduces cycle time - the amount of time it takes to develop and field a weapon - and gives a cost advantage. Raytheon hopes this philosophy will bear fruit for the Army's Common Missile program. In the hope of gaining an edge, Raytheon wants to closely couple work on the missile with that on the Army's next-generation precision projectile
Full Text
Faced with increasing competition in its munitions business domestically and abroad, Raytheon is looking for ways to leverage its existing precision-strike projects to win new customers and develop weapons that will secure the long-term financial health of the business.
One of the large thrusts for Raytheon's munitions business will be to share components across products, such as focal plane arrays, processors, guidance and navigation subsystems, says Louise Francesconi, who runs the business unit. She argues that the strategy ``reduces our cycle time''--the amount of time it takes to develop and field a weapon--and ``gives us a cost advantage.''
Raytheon hopes this philosophy will bear fruit for the Army's Common Missile program, which is to replace Tow and Hellfire. The company is locked in battle with Boeing and Lockheed Martin for one of the largest missile programs on the horizon. The weapon is being designed for helicopter and ground-platform use, and is slated for fielding around 2008-09.
In the hope of gaining an edge, Raytheon wants to closely couple work on the missile with that on the Army's next-generation precision projectile, says Bill Paterson, who oversees both efforts. For instance, multi-mode seeker development is one area where both efforts could benefit from the same technology, he says. Additionally, the Common Missile would probably use the same processor as a loitering munition Raytheon is designing for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's NetFires activity.
A similar scenario is playing out in the naval and surface-launched weapons arena. Raytheon is developing the Navy's 5-in. Extended-Range Guided Munition and 155-mm. Long-Range Land-Attack Projectile, as well as the 155-mm. XM982 Excalibur artillery round for the Army. There are plenty of opportunities to use common components, says David G. Martin, Raytheon vice president for guided projectiles. For instance, ERGM and Excalibur could share safe-and-arm devices. Additionally, all three weapons could use a common GPS/INS navigation kit, power supply, canard controls and anti-jam electronics.
In addition to the cost-focused initiatives, company officials are trying to stay in step with their customers and address growing requirements for low-collateral-damage munitions and smart, netted, persistent-loitering weapons, areas its competitors are eyeing with equal zeal.
On the reduced-damage front, for instance, BAE Systems and Raytheon are squared off on a project to develop and build a low-cost guided 2.75-in. rocket for the Army. The weapon, a modified Hydra-70, would be equipped with a semi-active laser seeker to bring its accuracy to about 1 meter, compared with 20-120 meters for the unguided system. Both bidders say that adding the guidance section to the M151 warhead and Mk66 rocket motor would cost less than $10,000 per round. Besides reducing the area of immediate damage, industry officials note that firing the guided-Hydra will be effective against most targets, and cheaper than using a laser-guided Hellfire.
As to addressing the more complex end of the spectrum of networked munitions, Raytheon is involved in the combined Army/Darpa NetFires program that is seen as one of the candidates to replace the Army's canceled Crusader artillery system. NetFires consists essentially of a container launch system and two weapons, the Loiter-Attack Missile (LAM) and the lower-end Precision-Attack Missile (PAM). Conceptually, the LAM would be launched, fly to a designated area using GPS/INS navigation, and look for targets using its ladar seeker. The TJ-30 turbojet-powered munition can loiter for about an hour and would be in constant contact via a two-way data link. Once the munition finds a target, aided by automatic target-recognition software, a PAM would be fired to attack it. LAM could also attack the target either if it is a high priority or if the LAM is almost out of fuel and will expire anyway. But PAM is designed to be less sophisticated and cheaper and therefore would be used in most cases. Raytheon engineers also are developing an air-launched version of LAM for helicopter use.
For its long-term viability, the company also is spending heavily on seeker technologies and other components, both through internal dollars and government-funded efforts. Although directed-energy weapons are attracting a lot of attention, continued effort is going into sustaining the core munition product line.
One of the key focal areas on the optical side is work on ladars. The goal is to develop a ``flash ladar'' that could image a target instantaneously rather than having to scan it to build the image, says Jim Wolf, who is involved in advanced programs for the group. Eventually, engineers hope to exploit other aspects of the data that could be used to discriminate between a target and a decoy. The company also is exploring different radiofrequency seeker options. Wolf said Ka-band seekers, for instance, have attractiveness. Because of the short wavelength, such seekers would have better resolution. The penalty is much shorter range in adverse weather.
As technologists explore different seeker candidates and move to multi-mode seekers, Wolf said, it is important to closely integrate the different techniques. By fusing the information together, rather than merely operating the different modes in parallel, it becomes much harder for an adversary to employ effective countermeasures, he noted. Moreover, combining information from multiple seekers should allow each sub-element to employ simpler, cheaper technology and still achieve the desired effectiveness, he argued.
Illustration
Illustration: Diagram: U.S. Army NetFires loitering munition will use the same processor as the Navy's Common Missile to cut the costs of precision-strike weapons.
x79 David a Fulghum; Douglas Barrie : U.K. Developing, Testing Directed Energy Weapon: The British Defense Ministry is working on a classified high-power microwave payload for air-launched weapons
2002-07
Aviation Week & Space Technology 157.5 (July 29, 2002): 26.
Abstract (summary)
Britain has developed and successfully tested a prototype directed energy weapon package applicable for use on unmanned air vehicles or standoff cruise missiles, with some of the weapon tests carried out in the U.S. The defense ministry program to develop the high-power microwave (HPM) payload was underway by the mid-1990s. The payload is intended as a weapon for use against a target set including command and control, communications, and air defense assets. The intent of an HPM weapon is to create an intense power surge in electrical systems, ideally causing permanent, irreparable damage. A potential candidate platform, were the U.K. to operationally deploy an HPM weapon, would be the Storm Shadow cruise missile, which will enter service with the British Royal Air Force before the end of 2002.
Full Text
Britain has developed and successfully tested a prototype directed energy weapon package applicable for use on unmanned air vehicles or standoff cruise missiles, with some of the weapon tests carried out in the U.S.
The defense ministry program to develop the high-power microwave (HPM) payload was underway by the mid-1990s. The payload is intended as a weapon for use against a target set including: command and control, communications, and air defense assets. It is conceivable a prototype HPM weapon could be fielded, if required, within the coming months.
Trials of the HPM payload have been carried out, with the directed energy weapon package flown in a test delivery vehicle. At least some of the trials were carried out on U.S. ranges, reflecting U.S. interest in the weapon.
Development of the HPM payload is believed to have involved U.K. government research laboratories and British industry. The payload was sized for Ryan Aeronautical's (now Northrop Grumman) BQM-145A medium-range UAV. The high-speed low-flying UAVs used could either be ground launched or dropped from an F/A-18-size aircraft.
One U.S. source suggested there was U.S. Navy interest in pursuing a joint program, but it remains uncertain as to the extent, if any, of continuing U.K.-U.S. collaboration.
The intent of an HPM weapon is to create an intense power surge in electrical systems, ideally causing permanent, irreparable damage.
British industry leaders readily admit to an interest in directed energy weapons; however, they decline to discuss any specific aspects of work they might be pursuing.
Five of the BQ-145A UAVs were turned over to the U.S. Air Force and are held by the UAV Battle Lab at Eglin AFB, Fla. Tests of the British payload were considered much more promising than an earlier test at Eglin that used modified air-launched cruise missiles. They were designed to produce a pulse of microwave energy when high explosives wrapped around a coil generating an electrical field were detonated.
A potential candidate platform, were the U.K. to operationally deploy an HPM weapon, would be the Storm Shadow cruise missile, which will enter service with the British Royal Air Force before the end of 2002.
``In the U.S., there has been a lot of research into DE [directed energy],'' a senior British industry official said. ``Fortunately, in the U.K. there has been some equivalent investment as well, so we are better placed than some of our [European] colleagues.''
Germany has also been looking at HPM payloads for UAV applications. Manfred Lehnigk, an executive with Germany's STN Atlas Electronik, builder of the Taifun UAV, said that his company is looking at an HPM weapon for unmanned aircraft, but it will likely take a minimum of five years to turn the system into payload.
``The UCAV programs are highly classified, but we have taken the cover off various other projects, like HPM artillery shells, just to demonstrate that we are actively involved in all sorts of active variants of [electronic]-kill mechanisms.''
However, he warned, the need for miniaturization and large power requirements will continue to dog delivery of airborne DE systems.
``I think increasingly you'll see the importance of being able to interrupt communications, be it command and control or straight communications processes,'' Lehnigk said.
``You will see continued focus on the disruptive soft kill. We've already seen examples, like Kosovo, where various non-destructive weapons were deployed to knock out electric power on a temporary basis,'' he said.
HPM also holds promise for attacking hardened and underground targets.
``To get at a 100-meter-deep target, explosives may not be the answer,'' the British official said. ``If you want to get underground, you have to start from the surface to get there. So you look at power lines, antennas, water pipes and ingress and egress sites'' where metallic structures would conduct pulses of energy deep into the structure to damage sensitive electronics concealed there.
The U.S. has largely decided to use lasers from manned aircraft and HPM from unmanned (the latter in case fly-by-wire flight controls are damaged by the energy pulse). British researchers say they think there is a useful role for HPM from manned aircraft, but demur from being more specific, citing security restraints.
British timelines for having tactically representative directed energy weapons roughly parallel those of the U.S. with which there appear to be some collaborative efforts.
``Reusable HPM will be demonstrated in a couple of years and laser weapons a few years beyond that,'' said one British official. But unlike the U.S., there's ``not the [single] concentration on disposable DE weapons'' that could be mounted in cruise missiles or some type of bomb, he said, adding ``we want reusable directed energy devices.''
Photograph
Photograph: The Storm Shadow cruise missile, shown carried by a Tornado, is shortly to enter service. It could provide a delivery vehicle for a directed energy payload.
x80 David a. Fulghum : Microwave Weapons May Be Ready for Iraq
2002-08
Aviation Week & Space Technology 157.6 (August 5, 2002): 24.
Abstract (summary)
An attack on Iraq is expected to see the first use of high-power microwave (HPM) weapons that produce a split-second spike of energy powerful enough to damage electronic components and scramble computer memories. They are designed, at least initially, for use from cruise missiles and unmanned aircraft. HPM weapons now available to be used against Iraq are not talked about openly. They are built, like bombs, as expendable one-time-use weapons. Many of the payloads are designed for carriage by cruise missiles like the ALCM, Tomahawk, Jassm or Britain's Storm Shadow. However, there may be an alternative to one-way missions by these expensive cruise missiles.
Full Text
An attack on Iraq is expected to see the first use of high-power microwave weapons that produce a split-second spike of energy powerful enough to damage electronic components and scramble computer memories.
They are designed, at least initially, for use from cruise missiles and unmanned aircraft. Adding a directed-energy weapon to an unmanned combat vehicle ``is the ideal mode,'' said a British aerospace official. Britain also is well advanced in the technology. ``There's no risk to a pilot, there's a greater degree of accuracy [in hitting the target], and it doesn't rely on scattering flechettes that murder half the population of the country you are attacking. Everybody wants that capability. There are those who say we could demonstrate it today,'' he said with a smile.
The combination of unmanned vehicles and HPM (high-power microwave) weap-
ons also provides a way to attack the toughest targets in any foe's arsenal, said Gen. John Jumper, U.S. Air Force chief of staff.
``If you combine directed energy with the UCAVs of the type we have today, you have a combination that uses stealth to go into [heavily defended territory and HPM to] tell the SA-10 that it's a Maytag washer on the rinse cycle rather than a missile about to shoot somebody down,'' Jumper said. ``You can fly this thing in and debilitate in various ways the sophisticated communications and electronics that are going to cause you the greatest worry [and make the attack] with deniability. I don't think it will compete with F-15Es and the Joint Strike Fighter, but it would be valuable to commanders in an [air defense] suppression or information operations role.''
Lt. Gen. Charles Wald, Air Force deputy chief of staff for air and space operations (and newly nominated for promotion to the rank of general and the post of deputy commander of U.S. European Command), also hinted at the use of new technologies in a recent Air Force Magazine interview.
Electronic warfare in any new conflict will include information operations, which can involve the placing of false targets via computer penetration, according to another Air Force official. ``And perhaps some emerging technologies that are still classified,'' Wald said.
In the longer term, perhaps in 3-5 years, the military expects to have reusable HPM weapons that can be installed on aircraft or unmanned combat aircraft. Because of HPM's limited range--now just getting beyond the 1,000-ft. mark--planners look at unmanned aircraft as the perfect platform to go into heavily defended areas to damage air defense radars, communications, command and control computers, and chemical/biological storage or production facilities.
However, HPM weapons now available to be used against Iraq are not talked about openly. They are built, like bombs, as expendable one-time-use weapons. Many of the payloads are designed for carriage by cruise missiles like the ALCM, Tomahawk, Jassm or Britain's Storm Shadow. However, there may be an alternative to one-way missions by these expensive cruise missiles. At the recent Farnborough air show, Lockheed Martin's advanced development program produced concepts for returnable cruise missiles, which would help defray the cost of expensive airframes and HPM payloads.
Two systems have been used to produce HPM. An older technology explodes high explosives wrapped around a coil with an electrical field to produce a blast of HPM. A version of this was tested by the U.S. Air Force using specially modified Air Launched Cruise Missiles but was supposedly abandoned for not being directional or long-range enough.
A higher tech version uses a new generation of capacitors. These are discharged, and the pulse of energy focused in a relatively tight arc in front of the missile.
Range of HPM is expected to continue increasing as apertures and electronically steered antennas are improved, said a senior U.S. aerospace official. This class of weapon is expected to be effective against command and control centers and weapons production sites buried deep underground as a defense against allied air attacks. CIA officials have noted for the last decade greatly increased purchases of Earth-boring equipment by Middle Eastern countries. While these buried sites may be immune to bombs, they have vulnerabilities to HPM. They must have access to the surface for water, ventilation, electricity and communications. All these provide conduits for bursts of energy into the underground structure.
Current research emphasis has now shifted to ``reusable payloads, not on one-way, cruise missile-type missions,'' a U.S. Air Force official said. ``We want to send them back on mission after mission. TRW is conducting a number of projects at Kirtland [AFB, N.M., an Air Force Research Laboratory facility]. They're making good headway, but they can't squirt sufficient energy at long ranges. That's why we need UCAVs. With precision navigation, you can put a DE [directed-energy] payload within 50 ft. of a geographic point so that you can shoot a burst of HPM at the right time and right place.''
HPM and lasers are the primary directed-energy weapons available to the military, but on the horizon is a third called a plasma weapon. A plasma packet has mass, moves through space and has been compared with a bolt of lightning. It is slower than a laser beam or HPM spike, but it can cause much more physical damage.
Photograph
Photograph: Expendable, high-power micro-wave weapons mounted in cruise missiles and other aerial weapons could be first used in combat in Iraq as the U.S. introduces new technological wrinkles to create confusion and surprise.
x81 Hays, Peter : Review Essay: The Military Use of Space
2002-09
Air & Space Power Journal; Fall 2002; 16, 3; ProQuest Science Journals pg. 100
"The Military Use of Space: A Diagnoistic Assessment" by Barry Watts. Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (http://www.csbaonline.org), 1730 Rhode Island Avenue NW, Suite 912, Washington, D.C. 20036, 2001, 130 pages.
"On the Edge of Earth: The Future of American Space Power" by Steven Lambakis. University Press of Kentucky (http://uky.edu/UniversityPress). 663 South Limestone Street, Lexington, Kentucky 40508-4008, 2001, 365 pages.
"Astropolitik: Classical Geopolitics in the Space Age" by Everett C. Dolman. Frank Cass Publishers (http://www.frankcass.com), 5824 NE Hassalo Street, Portland, Oregon 97213-3644, 2002, 208 pages.
"Space Weapons, Earth Wars" by Bob Preston et al. RAND Corporation (http://www.rand.org), 1700 Main Street, P.O. Box 2138, Santa Monica, California 900407-2138, 2002, 201 pages.
"Ten Propositions Regarding Spacepower" by M.V. Smith. Forthcoming, Air University Press (http://www.maxwell.af.mil/au/aul/aupress), 131 West Shumacher Ave, Maxwell AFB, Alabama 36112-6615, on-line, Internet, available from http://research.au.af.mil/papers/student/ay2001/saas/smith.pdf
No doubt Arthur C. Clarke would appreciate the fact that 2001 saw the emergence of five major works on military-space issues... Coming on the heels of the congressionally mandated Report of the Commission to Assess United States National Security Space Management and Organization (Space Commission) of 11 January 2001, chaired by the once and future secretary of defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, these publications afford a lofty vista from which to assess both narrow issues such as the implementation of the Space Commission's recommendations and many broader concerns...
Barry Watt's "The Military Use of Space" is must reading for any serious student of military space...
[A] considerable amount of ambiguity is associated with the concepts and definitions of space control and force application.
x82 Jefferson Morris : LM: High-power microwave weapons on UAVs ready for ACTD
2002-09
Aerospace Daily 203.56 (Sep 19, 2002): 6.
Abstract (summary)
At a press briefing at the Air Force Association's 2002 conference in Washington Sept. 18, Neil Kacena, Lockheed Martin's deputy for advanced development programs, said given sufficient funding, an "ACTD potential" for HPM via unmanned aircraft exists today.
The effectiveness of directed energy weapons such as HPM and high-energy lasers is dependent on the class of target, the level of shielding, and the range. Because of range limitations, deep-penetrating UCAVs and cruise missiles remain the best platforms for such operations, according to Kacena.
To get around this problem, aircraft carrying HPM require changes in the way their electronics are housed. Lockheed Martin is taking a "clean-sheet" approach, designing new platforms rather than modifying existing ones, according to Kacena.
Full Text
The technology is available to integrate high-power microwave weapons onto unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) or cruise missiles, and would make a good candidate for the Defense Department's Advanced Concept Technology Demonstration (ACTD) program, according to Lockheed Martin.
High-power microwave (HPM) is a form of directed energy that sends a signal powerful enough to damage electronic components, stall automobile ignitions, and scramble computer memories.
At a press briefing at the Air Force Association's 2002 conference in Washington Sept. 18, Neil Kacena, Lockheed Martin's deputy for advanced development programs, said given sufficient funding, an "ACTD potential" for HPM via unmanned aircraft exists today.
"I think the technology is at hand," he said.
ACTDs are rapid demonstrations of relatively mature technologies that show promise for future military operations. The Defense Department selects a new batch of ACTDs for each fiscal year.
Lockheed Martin is pursuing concepts in which new unmanned combat air vehicles (UCAVs) or modified cruise missiles could be used to disrupt facilities such as chemical and biological weapons plants, or various storage facilities for weapons of mass destruction.
After an HPM blast, "a truck with ... an electronic ignition is stopped in its tracks," Kacena said. "The defenses or the radar for that facility are taken down because their 'fuses are blown,' so to speak.
"By using pulses of energy, not only can it stop or disrupt the transportation but the actual processing capability that is required to electronically develop that chemical or bio agent is functionally destroyed," he said. "So you really stop the process."
HPM also offers the advantage of leaving facilities relatively intact, negating the need to rebuild the area and restore infrastructure, according to Kacena.
"There's not a big hole in the ground, there's not a hole in the roof," he said. "The facility is dead, the car doesn't go anyplace, the truck is stranded in the road, but it's in one piece."
Limitations
The effectiveness of directed energy weapons such as HPM and high-energy lasers is dependent on the class of target, the level of shielding, and the range. Because of range limitations, deep-penetrating UCAVs and cruise missiles remain the best platforms for such operations, according to Kacena.
Another reason why Lockheed Martin is pursuing HPM on unmanned systems rather than manned aircraft is to reduce risk when dealing with the challenge of protecting the aircraft from the effects of its own weapon.
"At those kinds of ranges, if you're in a classic fighter and you've got this kind of device onboard, [it's] obviously very close to your radar" and avionics, Kacena said.
To get around this problem, aircraft carrying HPM require changes in the way their electronics are housed. Lockheed Martin is taking a "clean-sheet" approach, designing new platforms rather than modifying existing ones, according to Kacena.
For the moment, the company is focused on developing reusable platforms for HPM operations, although the initial deployments might take place on expendable vehicles, he said.
x83 FRANK MORRING, JR. : NON-LETHAL WAR
2002-09
Aviation Week & Space Technology 157.10 (Sep 2, 2002): 23.
Full Text
The U.S. plans to use at least two nonlethal technologies if it goes to war with Iraq, information warfare (IW) and directed energy. IW includes mining a foe's computers for intelligence and implanting false targets in air defense systems. Directed energy would scramble battlefield computer memories, which is seen as particularly important in shutting down the production, storage and use of chemical and biological weapons. While noting that directed-energy weapons, including high-power microwaves, are in "varying early stages," Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said "you reach in there and take something out that is still in a developmental stage and you might use it." Despite the technologies' promise, past disputes between the military and intelligence agencies over its use continue, in part because there are more IW capabilities than there were during the Gulf war. Decisions about when to use nonkinetic weapons are still "in the works," according to Gen. John P. Jumper, the Air Force chief of staff. "You have to coordinate the [weapons] effects, no matter what forms they take."
x84 JAMES R. ASKER : USE IT BUT DON'T LOSE IT
2002-09
Aviation Week & Space Technology 157.11 (Sep 9, 2002): 29.
Full Text
U.S. warfighters have a one-shot, one-way, high-power microwave payload available for use on cruise missiles to fry enemy battlefield electronics like radars and computers. However, the Pentagon is reluctant to use such weapons without great need. There's hand-wringing about the maturity of antenna technology, a concern because beams of microwaves are hard to direct accurately. The other worry is that in cruise missile attacks, frequently some are lost or go astray. A few have been recovered fairly intact. Speaking of directed-energy weapons, one defense official opined, "You don't want that technology to fall into someone else's hands."
x85 War Planning for Iraq Continues on Target By DAVID A. FULGHUM Even with delays for a U.N. inspection program, an offensive campaign could still begin by February
2002-09
Aviation Week & Space Technology 157.13 (Sep 23, 2002): 22-23.
Abstract (summary)
Pentagon and White House war plans appear on schedule for a post-November-election assault on Iraq, unless Saddam Hussein permits the unhindered resumption of inspections to search for illegal development, production or storage of weapons of mass destruction. Even though Iraq agreed to inspections, few in the US believe a thorough search will be carried out without considerable obstruction from Iraqi officials and attempts to conceal the nation's weapons-building efforts. The US will press for a tight deadline for starting the inspection. The US is continuing to build up its forces in the region. Shortages in intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance assets are a concern. Unmanned aircraft developed to deliver chemical and biological weapons could be disabled by directed-energy weapons, conventional bombing, or interception by fighter aircraft.
Full Text
Pentagon and White House war plans appear on schedule for a post-November-election assault on Iraq, unless Saddam Hussein permits the unhindered resumption of inspections to search for illegal development, production or storage of weapons of mass destruction.
Even though Iraq last week agreed to inspections, few in the U.S. believe a thorough search will be carried out without considerable obstruction from Iraqi officials and attempts to conceal the nation's weapons-building efforts. The U.S. will press for a tight deadline for starting the inspection, probably within a month, said an Air Force official. There is little U.S. tolerance evident for predictions that it will take 3-4 months to get the process moving. A New Zealand team of military and civilian inspectors, part of the U.N. group ejected in 1998, has already announced its readiness and willingness to go.
"There is evidence to support [Iraqi possession of] mobile production capabilities for chemical and biological weapons" mounted on tractor-trailer trucks, that can be quickly shifted from site to site, said Air Force Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
"THE FACT YOU CAN PUT IT on wheels makes it a lot easier to hide," Myers said. "It does not take a lot of space for some of this work to go on. It can be done in a very, very small location." For example, the preparation of biological agents could be done using four cargo trailers for power and water, feed stock preparation, fermentation and agent purification. Earlier weapons inspection teams hunted mobile fermentation facilities, but were unable to find them, a senior defense official contends.
U.S. officials have complained that large trucks bought in the oil-for-food program have been converted for this and other war-like purposes such as carrying missiles and transporting armored vehicles. Other food-for-oil money went for air defense and military communications components, he said.
"Iraq's agreement on inspections will buy them no more than 30 days [from when inspections start]," another U.S. Air Force official said. "They will start interfering and when they do, the inspectors will be withdrawn immediately and the bombing will start the next day."
"You'll see a lot of information warfare," he said. "There will be mining of databases and lots of false targets generated. And, if most of the computers in the country immediately go down, that's not a bad way to start the war." Among the new weaponry that could be demonstrated in the conflict are high power RF or high power microwave devices. They produce a sharp pulse of energy to damage fragile electronic components in radars, radios and computers. Tests of these types of weapons have also burned out vehicle ignitions and small electric motors.
Such weapons are also expected to be effective against facilities that produce and store chemical and biological agents. The U.N. special commission on Iraq said those could include anthrax, botulism, aflatoxin and gas gangrene.
Military planners indicate they are busy looking deep into their tool kit to come up with novel weapons they can put to use. "We always want to be able to exploit developmental systems," says Gen. Gregory S. Martin, commander of U.S. Air Forces in Europe, which are already involved in Iraq in day-to-day northern no-fly zone operations. "We'll use all techniques possible," he added.
THE U.S. IS CONTINUING to build up its forces in the region. A forward element of U.S. Central Command headquarters will move from Tampa, Fla., to recently expanded al Udeid AB, Qatar, where a new combined air operations center (CAOC) has been constructed. Myers noted that moving elements of the headquarters into the theater would ease some of the problems exposed during the Afghanistan conflict. CAOC personnel in theater had to work round the clock to keep up with operations and demands from Washington. "There has been a debate as long as Central Command has been around as to where it would be best positioned," Myers said. "If it had not been for modern technology, [conduct of the war in Afghanistan] it would have been impossible to keep it in Tampa."
As recently as two weeks ago, the move was still being touted as a temporary three-week exercise, part of the November Internal Look 2003. But Myers said that it is "a likely outcome [that the Centcom personnel] may stay there permanently. My guess is that the secretary [Donald H. Rumsfeld] will make a decision to push a forward headquarters into the region. It makes sense. We've got to be ready for action." About 600 members of the Centcom staff will be affected along with 400 personnel from subordinate and allied commands, especially those from Britain. "It was always the plan for them to stay there," another USAF official said.
AL UDEID WAS BEING BUILT UP and its CAOC expanded as an alternative to the command center at Prince Sultan AB, Saudi Arabia, which the U.S. would not be allowed to use if the attack was unilateral. However, Saudi officials said the U.S. could use the facility if attacks are authorized by the U.N. Security Council. "That's a big breakthrough," the Air Force official said. "I would anticipate that in any future operation we would have cooperation [from the Saudis]," Myers said.
Meanwhile, the Air Force is showing interest in deploying B-2 stealth bombers from Whiteman AFB, Mo., to Britain's Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean. Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. John Jumper, while unwilling to confirm discussions on the topic, said that moving bombers forward would increase the number of sorties that can be generated.
Attacks on Iraqi air defenses, part of the long-term Northern Watch and Southern Watch operations, have expanded from surface-to-air missile sites, particularly their radars, to included command and control nodes and other permanent structures associated with air defense systems, said Rumsfeld. "Whether they're going to be stronger or weaker in the event anything were to occur in the future is a function of how fast they're able to rebuild and replace and replenish that capability," he said.
The command and control centers have fiber-optic data links that are impossible to block with conventional jamming. By destroying the links, Iraqi crews would have to communicate by radio--subject to interception, spoofing and jamming. But finding those nodes can be difficult, planners acknowledge.
Martin wishes that, over the years of no-fly zone operations, more damage had been done to Iraqi air defenses. Although Iraq's anti-aircraft umbrella is much degraded from what the U.S. faced ten years ago, Martin said that "they also have learned techniques and procedures that may make them more difficult to deal with."
Military planners also want to force Iraq to rely on microwave communications because those provide a gateway for introducing false targets into air defense systems and probing computer memories. Attacks are expected to move ever closer to the air defense centers at Talil in the south, Baghdad and Mosul in the north. The combined effects of these expanded attacks could "make it easier when [U.S. aircraft] have to take down the whole air defense system," the Air Force official said.
Meanwhile, the production of Joint Direct Attack Munition bomb guidance systems, Paveway II precision weapons and blast-fragmentation warheads for Hellfire missiles, among others, is escalating. Production for JDAM should peak next summer at 1,800 bomb kits per month. The Israelis learned in recent West Bank fighting that the Hellfire is crucial for fighting in built-up urban areas where heavy weapons can't be used for fear of collateral damage, and anti-armor weapons simply punch through buildings without exploding. Martin says weapons stocks have returned to adequate levels.
HOWEVER, SHORTAGES IN INTELLIGENCE, surveillance and reconnaissance assets are a concern, Martin said. The loss of several Global Hawks and Predators wouldn't keep the U.S. from effectively attacking Iraq, he noted, but it is something planners worry about. The Pentagon is still trying to accelerate Global Hawk sensor production to regain an electro-optical/infrared capability on Global Hawk. All those sensors were lost in crashes, leaving only synthetic aperture radars for use on the endurance UAV.
A key set of targets for the U.S. and its allies will be several underground complexes in and around Baghdad. After constructing the complexes, Iraqi officials deliberately built up dense civilian housing complexes over them. The official said, "We've got to figure out how to minimize the collateral damage.
"U.S. forces are lean forward now. They're working up the force list and getting the designated [air expeditionary forces] ready to go."
U.S. special operations forces are slated to play a major role in finding the underground facilities and providing target coordinates to aircraft to drop "bunker-busting" bombs. The U.S. dropped a large number of those penetrating munitions on caves during the Afghanistan campaign, which has provided special ops teams valuable lessons on how to more effectively employ the munitions, an Air Force SOF representative said.
Myers said that Iraq's research, production and weaponization of chemical and biological weapons and "thirst for nuclear weapons" has increased in the last decade. But less worrisome for U.S. planners is the Iraqi army. Recent figures put its strength at about 400,000 troops, only about 100,000 of whom are considered well-trained. "They are much weaker than they were during Desert Storm," he said.
A number of stories have surfaced about Iraq's development of unmanned aircraft to deliver chemical and biological weapons. U.S. intelligence officials said reports about MiG-21s and MiG-23s being adapted for the role are "bogus," but work on L-29 trainers, other light aircraft and UAVs is of concern. However, such aircraft could be disabled bydirected-energy weapons, conventional bombing or interception by fighter aircraft unless Iraq were to use them in a surprise attack.
Illustration
Photo: Photograph: AGM-130s, shown under the wing of this F-15E, are among the weapons of choice for attacking entrances to underground structures. JIM HASELTINE; Photograph: Modified unmanned L-29 trainers are considered real threats for carrying biological and chemical weapons, say U.S. intelligence officials.
x86 Fulghum, David A. : Pulse Weapons, Stealth Defenses Near Readiness
2002-09
Aviation Week & Space Technology 157.14 (Sep 30, 2002): 63-64.
Abstract (summary)
Two relatively unheralded developments - defenses against stealthy cruise missiles and directed-energy weapons for aircraft - are objects of major interest for the Pentagon. After several years of obfuscation, a new radar being developed for the next-generation surveillance and intelligence-gathering aircraft is now being touted in senior Air Force and aerospace industry circles as a "three-dimensional, high-definition, cruise missile defense system." The radar will have many of the attributes now attributed to the new active electronically scanned array (AESA) radars being developed for the F/A-22 and F-35 strike aircraft. Because they are made of many elements, such radars can do many tasks at once including passive and active search and jamming. I
Full Text
Two relatively unheralded developments--defenses against stealthy cruise missiles and directed-energy weapons for aircraft--are objects of major interest for the Pentagon.
There were broad hints about emerging technologies from those who are working on these advanced concepts for military use and were able to show their wares at this month's Air Force Assn. convention here.
After several years of obfuscation, a new radar being developed for the next-generation surveillance and intelligence-gathering aircraft is now being touted in senior Air Force and aerospace industry circles as a "three-dimensional, high-definition, cruise missile defense system." The Northrop Grumman/Raytheon MP-RTIP radar--a greatly upgraded version of the radar now on the E-8 Joint-STARS ground surveillance aircraft--is at the heart of the new capability and is the key sensor for the Multisensor Command and Control Aircraft (MC2A). A new generation of radar transmission/receiver modules has improved resolution to less than 1 ft. (from around 12 ft.) and increased the radar's effective range against low-observable cruise missiles to more than 200 mi.
The radar will have many of the attributes now attributed to the new active electronically scanned array (AESA) radars being developed for the F/A-22 and F-35 strike aircraft. Because they are made of many elements, such radars can do many tasks at once including passive and active search and jamming. In fact, developers contend that the reason for a lack of long-term upgrades for the EC-130 Compass Call is that AESA-type radar will offer the jamming capability in a very precise, hard-to-detect pattern instead of the less precise jamming patterns used today. Moreover, the big radar is migrating to other platforms as an air defense system.
Global Hawk UAVs are being considered for homeland defense roles, said Paul K. Meyer, Northrop Grumman's vice president for business and strategy development. The unmanned aircraft would operate 1,000 naut. mi. off the U.S. coast looking for cruise missile launches, and track the small vehicles accurately enough to cue interception by U.S. fighters or air defense weapons. The UAVs will be upgraded with larger wings and fuselage extensions to increase payloads to 3,000 lb. With up to four wing pylons, the UAV also could carry signals intelligence payloads that concentrate on cell phone frequencies, and multispectral sensors for detection of chemical/biological weapons, Meyer said. A European version of the aircraft, dubbed Eurohawk and built in conjunction with aerospace giant EADS, is scheduled for first flight in 2006.
"MP-RTIP redefines radar as a sensor," said an aerospace official with access to the program. The radar has become so crucial to future operations that the MC2A and Global Hawk aircraft that will carry it may be transferred from the Electronic Systems Center (ESC) to Air Combat Command (ACC), said Air Force and industry officials.
Various reasons are given for the switch. One is that as the programs move from development to operations, it is a natural progression. Others contend it is a visceral reaction by ACC to ensure operational requirements are written by combatants and not by engineers. "ACC wants to make that when they start a trip across the desert, ESC doesn't deliver an elephant to them instead of a camel," said a senior aerospace industry official. ESC officials are currently in a crash program to produce a "cogent vision" or road map for development of MC2A.
Once shifted to ACC, both Global Hawk and MC2A may be assigned to the 8th Air Force--now considered the heart of transformational air operations--for operational control and oversight of development, an Air Force official said.
Some controversy still swirls around efforts to get funding for a 767-based MC2A testbed. Congressional staffers opined that a 707 modified as an MC2A-X Paul Revere advanced command-and-control demonstrator was enough for the time being (AW&ST Sept. 23, p. 48). They have been arguing against putting $500 million into the Fiscal 2003 budget for the 767-testbed that, unlike the MC2A-X, would carry developmental sensors. The reluctance to fund was attributed to a congressional misunderstanding, and the Air Force has just moved to switch the MC2A-X designation from Paul Revere to the 767 testbed.
Nevertheless, few expect the testbed to be funded in 2003, and possibly not until after 2004. Those close to the project say putting off building the 767 testbed will delay integration of the aircraft and could slide its operational use--particularly as part of a defense against stealth cruise missiles--by years.
LESS AFFECTED BY controversy, at least so far, is the development of directed-energy weapons, particularly for use by cruise missiles and unmanned aircraft. Maturing most rapidly are high-power radio-frequency (RF) and high-power microwave weapons. They produce a short spike of energy that can damage electronic devices, scramble computer memories or disable car ignitions. However, they are effective at relatively short ranges. That means they weren't viable weapons until combined with unmanned aircraft and precision navigation that allowed them to penetrate heavy air defenses and be fired at a precise location.
When asked about reports of directed-energy weapons nearing operational use, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said there are emerging technologies that could be brought out of developmental status and used in combat if the situation required. This was done during the 1990-91 Persian Gulf war with the E-8 Joint-STARS. Another product from the laboratory was carbon-fiber warheads. The weapons released spiderwebs of superconductive material that were used to disable electrical power grids during the gulf war and again in the Kosovo air campaign. After years of rumors, aerospace industry officials are now at least admitting they are working on such technologies.
Lockheed Martin has unveiled a concept called the "high-power microwave cruise missile" that sports a V-tail, low-observable design and is shown, in animated simulations, as shutting down a factory that produces weapons of mass destruction (WMD) as well as the trucks that carry the products away to concealed operational sites. Variants of such weapons are also envisioned for unmanned combat aircraft and UAVs.
In addition to disabling chemical, biological and nuclear WMD production sites, the cruise missile's directed-energy weapon is also targeted against air defense radars, said Neil G. Kacina, deputy for Lockheed Martin's advanced development programs. The advantage of directed energy delivered by UAVs and cruise missiles is that militarily dangerous processes could be stopped without the kind of destruction that would cause major rebuilding expenses at war's end.
Directed-energy weapons are now effective at "more than a few hundred feet," Kacina said. However, their total impact on targets is difficult to predict. A critical factor is that any "commander wants to know with some confidence that he is going to cause the effects he desires," he said. "It is very much dependent on range and the target. Is it a laptop computer? How is it shielded? What kind of room is it in? What's the architecture of the building? Does it have windows? What's the geometry of the UCAV as it flies by? Is it directly overhead? Will I burn out his power supply? Will I force him to reboot? Will it destroy a component that will take him five days to replace?"
A portable, biological agent production facility such as Iraq has developed would be an attractive target for such a weapon. Tougher would be WMD capabilities or storage in the tunnel complexes in and around Baghdad that have been built over with public buildings like hospitals and dense housing units, said U.S. Air Force officials. They suggested that the answer is a directed-energy warhead combined with a penetrating bomb that would carve its way into the underground space and only then produce its electronics-destroying pulse.
BOTH HIGH-POWER RF and high-power microwave weapons are progressing rapidly and, if supported by a technology demonstration program, could be tested from a UAV or cruise missile and be ready for limited operational use in as little as 18-24 months, Kacina said. The technology would appear initially as a single-shot capability, but as it matured would evolve into a reusable weapon mounted on a returnable aircraft.
For a reusable, returnable UCAV, "we believe we will have to have a different design for flight controls," he said, because back and side lobes from the pulse's generation will damage any conventional host aircraft's electronics and make it crash.
Illustration
Photo: Photograph: Planners see cruise missiles as a threat, because they are hard to locate, and as a solution for carrying directed-energy devices to knock out a foe's weapons of mass destruction.
x87 DOD ranges face encroachment, safety crisis, official says
2002-10
Aerospace Daily 204.5 (Oct 7, 2002): 4.
Abstract (summary)
"A JDAM [Joint Direct Attack Munition] footprint from a very specific condition at 50,000 feet and 1.5 Mach, is too big for Eglin's 724-square-mile range; it fits on a piece of Nellis, is too big for Edwards, fits on White Sands, is too big for UTTER [the Utah Test and Training Range], fits China Lake. A Joint Standoff Weapon [JSOW] at medium altitudes has safety circles bigger than anything we have. We aren't going to drop any weapons outside of safety footprints and incur the wrath of the private sector, anything like that would shut a range," he said. Over-water ranges? [Robert J. Arnold] said over-water ranges are a possible solution to the safety issue, but they will require better and more extensive instrumentation.
"We are testing and training with 21st century weapons on World War II ranges in a post-cold war environment," Arnold said. "To my knowledge, there have not been any significant new ranges added to the inventory since World War II. In the last year, as we face a growing and more crowded world, protecting the ranges has been of high interest to DOD."
Full Text
The Defense Department faces a crisis in the ability of military test and training ranges to support advanced aircraft and munitions, said Robert J. Arnold, a technical adviser for the 46th Test Wing, Eglin Air Force Base, Fla.
The crisis has multiple aspects - encroachment, an aging infrastructure, funding, and safety, Arnold told the 40th Annual NDIA Air Targets, UAVs and Range Operations Symposium here Oct. 2.
"We are testing and training with 21st century weapons on World War II ranges in a post-cold war environment," Arnold said. "To my knowledge, there have not been any significant new ranges added to the inventory since World War II. In the last year, as we face a growing and more crowded world, protecting the ranges has been of high interest to DOD."
DOD's interest was emphasized with Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz's signing of the Sustainable Test and Training Ranging Initiative, aimed at establishing a coordinating body for all ranges and providing legislation to support them.
Arnold said encroachment is a problem, typified by the urban encirclement of test ranges such as at Nellis Air Force Base, Nev., as well as installations overseas. However, encroachment is not limited to the area surrounding a base or range, he said.
Modern weapons
"The recent [Federal Communications Commission] approval of ultra-wideband use (DAILY, Feb. 1) is going to make hash of the spectrum and we have to consider its ramifications and how it will affect us," Arnold said. Other concerns on the ranges include endangered species and the cost of handling unexploded ordnance.
"Aircraft are getting more complex and we are equipping them with a generation of modern weapons that are remarkable in terms of stand-off range, precision, and intelligence in their own right. That means that we must have an infrastructure that keeps up with them - the right instrumentation and the right sensors so we can effectively test them, he said.
The ranges' capability to support testing and training of advanced munitions to accurately reflect combat conditions presents another issue, he said.
"If we can't use the ranges the way we need to use them, it doesn't matter what instrumentation we have," he said.
The safety footprint of advanced weapons is the concern, Arnold said.
"Now ... there is not one range in this country that can contain what we believe is the next generation of weapons. Not Eglin or any other range," Arnold said.
"A JDAM [Joint Direct Attack Munition] footprint from a very specific condition at 50,000 feet and 1.5 Mach, is too big for Eglin's 724-square-mile range; it fits on a piece of Nellis, is too big for Edwards, fits on White Sands, is too big for UTTER [the Utah Test and Training Range], fits China Lake. A Joint Standoff Weapon [JSOW] at medium altitudes has safety circles bigger than anything we have. We aren't going to drop any weapons outside of safety footprints and incur the wrath of the private sector, anything like that would shut a range," he said. Over-water ranges? Arnold said over-water ranges are a possible solution to the safety issue, but they will require better and more extensive instrumentation.
"We need to do a better job of facilitizing our water ranges, we think there is a lot of opportunity of using many of the warning areas we have. JDAM and JSOW can be dropped over water on ranges such as Eglin's Gulf Range and the Naval Air Warfare Center's Range," he said.
Directed energy weapons present a new set of challenges in the containment of propagated energy, Arnold said.
"We have a great opportunity in directed energy because we can pretty much start with a clean slate and establish a range and infrastructure wherever it needs to be established to best benefit DOD," Arnold said. - John Terino
x88 Jefferson Morris : Raytheon: Solid-state lasers now ready for prime time
2002-10
Aerospace Daily 204.19 (Oct 25, 2002): 4.
Abstract (summary)
Solid-state lasers use electrically powered diodes or lamps to "pump" the laser by emitting light into a solid lasing medium - usually crystal or glass. As the technology matures, Raytheon hopes to produce solid-state laser systems for tactical aircraft, Navy ships, and ground vehicles being developed for the Army's Future Combat Systems (FCS) program.
Michael Booen, vice president for directed energy weapons at Raytheon, compared the current state of solid-state laser technology to the state of chemical lasers when the Airborne Laser (ABL) program began in the early 1990s.
Raytheon also is exploring methods for developing a fiber laser - another type of solid-state laser in which a synchronized bundle of fiber-optic cable is used as the lasing medium. AFRL hopes that fiber laser technology may one day allow fighters to carry laser beams in the megawatt class (DAILY, March 20).
Full Text
Solid-state laser technology is mature enough to begin moving out of the laboratory and into a variety of weapons systems for the services, according to officials with Raytheon's Directed Energy Weapons division.
Solid-state lasers use electrically powered diodes or lamps to "pump" the laser by emitting light into a solid lasing medium - usually crystal or glass. As the technology matures, Raytheon hopes to produce solid-state laser systems for tactical aircraft, Navy ships, and ground vehicles being developed for the Army's Future Combat Systems (FCS) program.
Michael Booen, vice president for directed energy weapons at Raytheon, compared the current state of solid-state laser technology to the state of chemical lasers when the Airborne Laser (ABL) program began in the early 1990s.
"When the Air Force was just starting out with [ABL] ... chemical laser technology itself had been in the lab for a decade, and they were waiting for environmental factors to come together to make an operational concept," Booen said during a press briefing in Rosslyn, Va., Oct. 24.
"Solid-state lasers are in that exact same spot," he said. "They've been in the lab for a while, [and] probably been underfunded. [But] this stuff is starting to come out of the lab, and you're going to start seeing it put into weapons concepts."
Booen cited the Navy's recently established directed energy office (PMS 405), and the Air Force Research Laboratory's (AFRL) $50 million 25-kilowatt solid-state laser program as evidence the services now are getting serious about directed energy.
Although more mature chemical laser systems already have demonstrated power levels in the megawatt class, they are bulky and require the handling of toxic materials. Thus, the Air Force believes solid-state laser systems are the best bet for small tactical aircraft in the near term, once their power output reaches 100 kilowatts or more.
"The magic of solid-state lasers is it requires the warfighter to take nothing to the front, other than the diesel or the nuclear power that he has," Booen said. "There are certainly strategic applications for chemical lasers ... but we are a company that supplies military hardware ... to the tactical arena, and that's what we're focused on."
Raytheon is one of the companies in the running to build a 25-kilowatt solid-state laser for the Air Force by late 2004. AFRL is expected to announce one or more contractors before the end of the year, and the resulting laser would serve as a precursor to a 100-kilowatt system to be demonstrated on the Joint Strike Fighter by the end of the decade (DAILY, Oct. 10).
So far, the power of solid-state laser systems has been limited by the difficulty and expense of creating the high-energy diodes required to pump them. However, the cost of diodes is dropping precipitously, according to Booen.
As an example, he said the Army Space and Missile Defense Command (SMDC) now is in the process of converting its Solid State Heat Capacity Laser (SSHCL) from flash lamp power to diode power as a cost-saving measure. Over the course of the program, the price of diodes "came down in the cost curve so that they were cheaper than flash lamps, and they're on this cost curve that is going to make it really attractive for putting these on the future systems," he said.
Raytheon also is exploring methods for developing a fiber laser - another type of solid-state laser in which a synchronized bundle of fiber-optic cable is used as the lasing medium. AFRL hopes that fiber laser technology may one day allow fighters to carry laser beams in the megawatt class (DAILY, March 20).
"We are working on that," Chan McKearn, project manager for the company's high-energy laser program, said during the briefing. "It's a little farther out than what we're talking about here, but it has promise."
x89 Fulghum, David A. : USAF Acknowledges Beam Weapon Readiness
2002-10
Aviation Week & Space Technology 157.15 (Oct 7, 2002): 27-28.
Abstract (summary)
Directed-energy technology is ready to be used as weaponry and, in a mature state, one device carried by an unmanned aircraft could attack each of 100 targets with 1,000 pulses of energy in a single sortie. HPM (high-powered microwave) also affects a larger area than a bomb, but without harming physical structures or people. A 1-ton bomb creates damage in a radius of about 120 ft. The footprint of a microwave munition is at least 100 times greater than that of a conventional munition. US military research laboratories have demonstrated HPM effects ranging from upsetting to destroying the electronics within military and commercial systems.
Full Text
Directed-energy technology is ready to be used as weaponry and, in a mature state, one device carried by an unmanned aircraft could attack each of 100 targets with 1,000 pulses of energy in a single sortie, says a former director of the U.S. Air Force's high-power microwave program.
"Except for the standard rifle, gun, knife or grenade, virtually all military equipment contains some electronics" that are vulnerable to a large pulse of energy, wrote Air Force Col. Eileen M. Walling. "Military commanders are in a state of virtually total dependence on radios, telephones, satellite communications, computers and faxes for communication with military units." Other targets include artillery targeting devices, guidance and control on precision munitions, and even locomotive engines. She also suggests HPM could be used to protect U.S. satellites and attack those of a foe without creating clouds of debris that could damage other spacecraft.
Having spent most of her career working on directed-energy technology issues, she wrote a research paper on what she considers an underrated weapons technology. Entitled "High Power Microwaves: Strategic and Operational Implications for Warfare," it was published by the Air University's center for strategy and technology in early 2000. Walling is now a division chief in Air Force Materiel Command at Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio.
"The projected maximum capability for a microwave [armed] UCAV is approximately 100,000 pulses of microwave energy (or shots) per mission," Walling wrote. "If one assumes 1,000 pulses per target, it is conceivable that a microwave UCAV could attack on the order of 100 targets per mission. In addition, a microwave system could be used to protect the UCAV from enemy missiles [even] if the enemy has the ability to detect low-observable aircraft."
HPM also affects a larger area than a bomb, but without harming physical structures or people. A 1-ton bomb creates damage in a radius of about 120 ft. "The footprint of a microwave munition is at least 100 times greater than that of a conventional munition," the report states. That may be a bloated number if applied to developmental weapons currently available for use against Iraq, according to other U.S. officials. They usually describe effects in terms of a few thousand feet or less. In fact, the primary stumbling block for directed-energy weapons is achieving sufficient range and power levels to be effective.
U.S. MILITARY RESEARCH laboratories have demonstrated HPM effects ranging from upsetting to destroying the electronics within military and commercial systems, Walling noted. The paper's conclusion, made more than two years ago, is that "high-power microwave technology is ready for the transition to active weapons in the U.S. military." Both Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and the chief of U.S. Air Forces, Europe, Gen. Gregory Martin, have said publicly that unspecified new developmental weapons technology could be used in an attack on Iraq. Facilities that manufacture, store or dispense chemical, biological and nuclear weapons are a "target set" particularly earmarked for energy weapons, according to statements made this summer and fall by U.S. aerospace industry officials. Conventional attacks could leave plumes of lethal agents adrift.
HPM devices have great potential both as offensive and defensive weapons, Walling said. She cited a 1998 Air Force survey--"Directed-Energy Applications for Tactical Airborne Combat"--that found the top four priorities were for microwave weapons (instead of lasers) in the areas of precision-guided munitions, large aircraft self-protection shields, small aircraft self-protection shields and as weapons for unmanned combat air vehicles. As a munition, some developmental systems are believed to be ready for combat in Iraq. Boeing plans to build an HPM weapon into the Block 30 version of its X-45 UCAV.
These weapons also could be built into a pod for carriage on a helicopter or packaged as artillery shells, scatterable mines and 1-ton bombs, the report said. As a defensive system, it contends HPM devices could ward off infrared- and radar-guided missiles. A phased-array antenna allows for rapid retargeting.
The report quickly ticks off the advantages of HPM weapons: They don't rely on exact knowledge of the enemy system. They leave persisting effects in enemy targets that may take weeks to find and repair. Even if enemy systems are turned off, they are still affected. And to counter HPM, the entire system must be hardened, which is a very expensive process.
An energy pulse can get into an enemy system by the "front door," which means its own antenna, dome or other sensor opening; or through the "back door," which includes cracks, seams, trailing wires, metal conduits of seals. Once inside, the emissions can destroy or disrupt integrated circuits, circuit cards and relay switches. The system's own electronic circuitry transmits the pulse, and resulting damage, even deeper into the system.
In the microwave technical community, the ability to scale or increase the effects is often described as "dial a hurt," Walling said. Results depend on the distance between the HPM weapon and the target, the vulnerability of the target, the power generated, and the characteristics of the microwave emission including frequency, burst rate and pulse duration. A rough scale describes four levels of effects:
-- Deny, which involves electronic upset or jamming. It might cause malfunctions within relay and processing circuits.
-- Degrade, which involves locking up a system or limiting its capabilities enough to require rebooting. It can include signal override or turning power on and off at irregular intervals.
-- Damage, which includes permanent effects that "latch up" a system. This can mean damage to components, circuit cards or mother boards, as wells as weeks to diagnose and repair the problems. Because microwaves can enter through multiple entry points, it is likely numerous circuits and components will be damaged.
-- Destroy, which means catastrophic and permanent injury to the system, requiring total replacement.
ANTENNA TECHNOLOGY is crucial for HPM weapons. Field of view for the phased-array emitter is expected to vary from several to tens of degrees. The multi-element design allows it to be built conformally into a pod or UCAV. Because it doesn't require precise aiming, there are far fewer stringent pointing and tracking requirements, Walling said. The microwaves' cone could offer a means to attack multiple targets at once; for example, all of the equipment in an antiaircraft missile site.
The range of HPM weapons has always been a concern. Tests have shown effects at tens to "more than" hundreds of feet. Walling seemed more optimistic. "With current technology, the range for a tactical microwave weapon could be in the tens of kilometers, and future advances . . . should permit the development of even longer ranges," the report said.
Other advantages cited for HPM weapons are that they would be immune to the weather and could produce multiple shots on a single mission. However, the report also alludes to single-shot designs. These latter seem to address concerns that side and back lobes from the generation of an HPM pulse could affect the carrying aircraft's own electronics.
Power levels for HPM weapons are increasing. The report said one microwave source weighing less that 45 lb. radiated 1 gigawatt of power within a few nanoseconds. A 400-lb. system radiated 20 gigawatts. The report noted that Hoover Dam generates 2 gigawatts per day. The HPM weapon would draw power from the air vehicle's engines, which would let it make a number of attacks during a mission.
Illustration
Photo: Photograph: Instead of bombs, some X-45 UCAVs may carry a multi-shot high-power microwave weapon that could paralyze the electronics of 100 targets in one mission.
x90 FRANK MORRING, JR. : World Space Congress: 'Vision' Meets Reality Tight money, new politics, 10 years of success and failure cause shift in focus at the second international conference
2002-10
Aviation Week & Space Technology 157.16 (Oct 14, 2002): 54-56.
Abstract (summary)
The environment for civil space activities has soured in the past decade. The Russian partnership on ISS turned out not to be a $2-billion savings on the total cost of the station, but a factor in the $4.8-billion shortfall in NASA accounts alone. In Russia, the government is hard pressed to supply Soyuz and Progress vehicles for ISS crew rescue and provisioning. The European Space Agency trimmed about $500 million from the space science accounts - the equivalent of a major planetary mission - in their last meeting. Certainly the space picture today is not all gloom and doom. The agenda for this year's congress is rich with papers and plenaries on future activities in deep space, on ISS and in engineering laboratories on the ground. The second World Space Congress should present plenty of options and techniques for exploration if financial and political conditions improve in the decade ahead.
Full Text
Lockheed Missiles & Space Co. created a splash with its exhibit hall display at the first World Space Congress, held here at the beginning of September 1992. The fading ripples from that splash serve to illustrate just how different the world is as delegates to the second World Space Congress gather in Houston this week.
Ten years ago the Sunnyvale, Calif.-based aerospace giant unveiled plans to draw on its experience building the Iridium low-Earth orbit (LEO) communications satellites to capture a chunk of the market for LEO constellations that the 66-satellite Iridium system was expected to spark. Some of those who admired the graphite-epoxy Iridium smallsat at the Lockheed booth had already reserved their Iridium phones in anticipation of being able to call anywhere, anytime from anywhere on the globe.
Entire corporate business plans were built, or at least under construction, on the expectations for Iridium as delegates assembled in the Washington Convention Center. The Cold War was over, and contractors like Lockheed that had kept their stockholders happy for years on Pentagon profits were turning to space ventures in the hope that was where the "peace dividend" could be redeemed.
"The United States remains deeply committed to our space program," Vice President Dan Quayle told the space congress. "With the Cold War behind us, we want to lead a global coalition in a cooperative effort in the peaceful use and exploration of space."
As Quayle spoke in Washington, Russian cosmonauts Anatoly Solovyov and Sergei Avdeyev were in orbit preparing their spacesuits for three trips outside the Mir space station to install upgrades that would extend the service life of the 6.5-year-old facility. Although their colleagues in the Moscow suburbs already were working on a replacement station core designated Mir II, high-level talks were well underway that ultimately led to its use as the Zvezda service module in the follow-on design to Space Station Freedom.
NASA Administrator Daniel S. Goldin, who brought Russia into what became the International Space Station (ISS) partnership, urged the 4,000 representatives of some 65 nations to take part in other international space efforts. He called for construction of an astronomical observatory on the Moon, and a "faster-better-cheaper" Pluto probe that could be launched early in the 21st century.
"Let's be bold and not afraid," Goldin said. "It's okay to take risks when you're pushing the frontiers of the possible."
At the White House the first President Bush was preparing to waive export restrictions and permit China to launch six satellites built with U.S. components. His trade representatives were negotiating rules that would eventually add big Soviet-era rockets like the Proton and Zenit to the world's stock of commercial space launch vehicles.
Meanwhile, across the Potomac River, acting Navy Secretary Sean O'Keefe was endorsing the F/A-18E/F for the Navy's strike mission, declaring it the combat aircraft best suited in terms of range and weapons to meet "the kind of scenarios we think of as probable."
Today O'Keefe has Goldin's old job at NASA, and is scheduled to represent the second President Bush at a World Space Congress backers hope will draw some 13,000 attendees from more than 100 countries. But the environment for civil space activities--epitomized by the fate of the Iridium venture--has soured in the past decade. The enthusiast's vision of the "possibilities" for the future Goldin espoused 10 years ago has given way to O'Keefe's cold-eyed assessment of grimmer "probabilities." Money is tight everywhere, and since the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, many of the aerospace contractors who build space hardware for peace and war have refocused on the military dollar.
"Now more than ever the future of our industry lies in the successful convergence of military and communications capabilities," Boeing's Jim Albaugh told the National Space Symposium in Colorado Springs Apr. 9. At the time Albaugh was president and CEO of Boeing Space and Communications. He now heads a new Boeing unit called Integrated Defense Systems that combines the company's defense, space and communications activities.
Lockheed Missiles and Space Co., since subsumed into the Lockheed Martin Corp. as part of the post-Cold War contraction of the U.S. defense industry, never realized the promise its executives saw in "Big LEO" constellations like Iridium. The original developers of the orbiting cell-phone system went bankrupt after spending about $6 billion, and their successors have yet to turn a profit with a modified business plan even after picking up the Iridium satellites and ground equipment for a mere $25 million.
The Iridium bankruptcy was the first card to topple in a whole edifice of commercial space expectations that failed to give adequate recognition to competition from surface-based communications systems. Most consumers don't need to call anywhere, anytime from anywhere, and they don't want to pay a premium for the capability. Launch industry prospects followed the decline of the LEO constellations, which starved the rocket-makers of hundreds of payloads they had counted on to finance modernization of their vehicles and factories.
Also caught in the shakeout was the prospect of a new reusable launch vehicle that could cut space transportation costs below that afforded by expendable rockets and, the theory went, enable a whole host of new space industries. Business plans for developing a multibillion-dollar reusable vehicle like Lockheed Martin's VentureStar wouldn't close when there was barely enough launch business to keep the expendable rockets in operation. Meanwhile the venture capital needed for commercial space development was scared off by the Big LEO collapse even before the dot.com bubble burst. Subsequent economic news has not improved the picture.
Today government money for space is tight too. The Russian partnership on ISS turned out not to be a $2-billion savings on the total cost of the station, as Goldin promised, but a factor in the $4.8-billion shortfall in NASA accounts alone. In Russia the picture is even worse. The government there is hard pressed to supply Soyuz and Progress vehicles for ISS crew rescue and provisioning, and NASA is hampered by proliferation restrictions from spending money it doesn't really have anyway on the Russian hardware. The situation is so dire that senior U.S. astronauts were forced to bend international regulations on ISS "spaceflight participants" in an ultimately unsuccessful effort to help Russia sell a Soyuz ride to boy band singer Lance Bass for a badly needed $20 million.
Efforts that were started under Goldin's tenure to stretch government funding for ISS and the space shuttle fleet with private investment in commercial activities have come to naught. Dreamtime, the Silicon Valley startup that promised to invest $100 million in high-definition television gear for ISS, defaulted when its seed money evaporated in the dot.com bust, while the lack of payloads has made talk of privatizing the space shuttle fleet academic.
At the European Space Agency, national science ministers trimmed about $500 million from the space science accounts--the equivalent of a major planetary mission--in their last meeting. Europe's Arianespace launch consortium is running in the red for the second year in a row, and so far ESA hasn't been able to settle on a plan to help out. Japan has overcome a run of failures with its new H-IIA rocket to achieve three straight successes, but has "frozen" funding for its Hope-X unpiloted shuttle and stretched the program over another decade.
Perhaps one bright spot is China, where the government in Beijing is pushing a spaceflight program that in the near future could make it the third nation to send humans into space. But the Chinese program's recent successes come after years of launch failures and a highly political U.S. effort to block the export of dual-use space technology to China that further damaged the health of the U.S. commercial satellite industry. And like a one-sided space race, the Chinese human spaceflight program seems to be more an attempt by party bureaucrats in Beijing to win legitimacy in the hinterlands than a true exploration program.
Certainly the space picture today is not all gloom and doom, and many of the promises of 1992 have been spectacularly realized. The space station, and the integration of the Russians into it, has been a dazzling engineering and political accomplishment. It is certain to be studied by students in both disciplines for generations to come as an example of problem solving at the highest level.
The Hubble Space Telescope was a joke in 1992, its vision clouded by a spherical aberration in its main light-gathering mirror that went undetected in a fog of government secrecy at the spy satellite factory where it was ground. But the grinding was perfect, and so was the aberration. NASA's brilliant engineers were able to devise a fix for the error that combined state-of-the-art optics and robotics, and it worked. The telescope continues to push ever deeper into the secrets of the Universe, raising as many questions as it answers as old theories crumble and the lay public is pulled into the adventure by the beauty of its imagery. NASA's Chandra X-ray telescope also had its problems at first, but once launched it gave science an entirely new view of the heavens that is delivering Hubble-quality discoveries.
NASA would not have these accomplishments on its record without the space shuttle, which has flown safely about 60 times since the first World Space Congress. The dedication and hard work of its flight crews, engineers and technicians have kept the heavens open to humans from many nations. To date no challenge--missions to Mir, Hubble servicing, ISS assembly--has proved too difficult for those who make the shuttles fly. Nor can the dedication of the space experts and cosmonauts of the former Soviet Union be overlooked. They have played an invaluable role in building and operating ISS, somehow keeping their space facilities open and their workhorse Soyuz and Progress vehicles operating as the economic system that created them vanished.
Europe overcame a disastrous failure on the first flight of its Ariane 5 to put the big new rocket on a path to replace the durable Ariane 4, which itself has flown successfully almost 70 times in a row. With Pentagon backing, the U.S. has built two big new expendable launchers--Boeing's Delta IV and Lockheed Martin's Atlas V--after getting very good service from its predecessors over the past decade. A host of commercial and scientific spacecraft missions have flown as a result, including spectacular Mars orbiters and--in 1997--a lander; the U.S./European Cassini-Huygens mission en route to Saturn and Titan, and a virtual armada of remote sensing satellites that are giving scientists a detailed new picture of Earth and its changing environment (see p. 58). NASA is going ahead with plans for its big infrared Next-Generation Space Telescope, which astronomers hope will push their view back to the time when the first galaxies lit up.
In 1992, as Goldin called for an international push to Pluto, technicians in Florida were dusting off the Mars Observer spacecraft, accidentally contaminated at the pad, and setting a new date for its launch on a Titan III. The international Pluto effort never materialized, although the U.S. Congress may fund a flyby probe called New Horizons over the objections of the cost-conscious Bush administration. Mars Observer disappeared as it entered orbit around the Red Planet, and both probes NASA launched during the 1998 Mars planetary window failed as well.
The mishaps and missed opportunities demonstrated, as if any further demonstration was needed, that space exploration is a risky and expensive business, with no guarantees even under the best circumstances. The agenda for the Houston congress is rich with papers and plenaries on future activities in deep space, on ISS and in engineering laboratories on the ground.
Combining annual meetings of the International Astronautical Congress and the Scientific Assembly of the Committee on Space Research with an international trade exhibition, two United Nations space workshops and affiliated conferences on space operations and space policy, the World Space Congress should present plenty of options and techniques for exploration if financial and political conditions improve in the decade ahead.
NASA has put its weight behind a five-year, $950-million effort to develop compact nuclear reactors and high-power electric propulsion as an enabler for future space exploration. That work, and the U.S. space agency's recent focus on developing reusable kerosene rocket engine technology, plays into Pentagon-veteran O'Keefe's interest in greater cooperation between NASA and U.S. military space forces. Space nuclear reactors can be just as useful on all-weather radar surveillance satellites or spaceborne directed-energy weapons as on a fast-track probe to Pluto, while the military's lower launch-weight requirements make hydrogen-fueled first stages unnecessary.
The nuclear-power initiative has been on NASA's space-science wish list for years, and the agency will probably dust off some of its other long-range plans at the World Space Congress to answer criticism that it lacks a vision for the future. Even if it does, there will be no shortage of ideas for bold ventures like the one that made "Houston" the first word spoken from the Moon.
But at the end of the day a comment from Quayle's Democratic opponent in his 1992 vice presidential reelection bid--Sen. Al Gore of Tennessee--defines the reality O'Keefe and his counterparts in other spacefaring nations seem to have accepted.
"It is unrealistic and unwise to continue to plan more than we can pay for," Gore stated in a criticism of the first Bush administration's NASA budget that shaped Clinton administration space policy to some extent as well. "We must work to match program needs with available resources."
Illustration
Photo: Photograph: Lockheed Martin's VentureStar never got off the drawing board as investment capital dried up and the launch market stagnated.; Photograph: A promised Russian discount on the costly Space Station Freedom project (shown) didn't materialize, leaving the International Space Station underfunded as well.
x91 Robert Wall : Emerging Weapons Aim To Foil Hardest Targets
2002-10
Aviation Week & Space Technology 157.17 (Oct 21, 2002): 28-29.
Abstract (summary)
A massive, 30,000-lb. Daisy Cutter replacement and other new weapon concepts are emerging to help U.S. forces defeat targets they have not been able to destroy with existing conventional munitions. Although many of these efforts are still embryonic, the Pentagon appears to be on the verge of a revolution in weapons technology on a scale not seen since the 1991 Persian Gulf war. Afghanistan has already heightened interest in these technologies and a new war with Iraq, in which the Pentagon could again find itself hunting Scud ballistic missile launchers and attacking underground structures, would add urgency.
Full Text
A massive, 30,000-lb. "Daisy Cutter" replacement and other new weapon concepts are emerging to help U.S. forces defeat targets they haven't been able to destroy with existing conventional munitions.
Although many of these efforts are still embryonic, the Pentagon appears to be on the verge of a revolution in weapons technology on a scale not seen since the 1991 Persian Gulf war. At that time, the military embarked on a full-court press to field all-weather, near-precision weapons such as the GPS-guided Joint Direct Attack Munition, Joint Standoff Weapon and Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile, and the inertially guided Wind-Corrected Munitions Dispenser.
But those weapons left some targets immune to attack, which developers hope to fix by introducing new systems--some huge, some small, others with extreme endurance and those that can act like a sleeper spy, remaining dormant for long periods in enemy territory only to be activated at the right time. Afghanistan has already heightened interest in these technologies and a new war with Iraq, in which the Pentagon could again find itself hunting Scud ballistic missile launchers and attacking underground structures, would add urgency.
In recent years, the Pentagon has focused on defeating underground and hardened targets. Now, fleeting targets and neutralizing weapons of mass destruction facilities have been added to the mix. Moreover, the military is looking at more innovative ways to destroy the underground facilities than just building bigger and more effective penetrator bombs.
Nevertheless, size still matters to the Air Force, which has been exploring a 30,000-lb. penetrator bomb (known as the "Big-BLU") to be dropped from the B-2. The added mass would give the weapon much greater penetration to hit targets deep underground. Currently, the Air Force uses 5,000-lb.-class GBU-28s and GBU-37s as its largest bunker busters.
Additionally, USAF has begun investigating whether a similar size weapon could be used in a blast-only configuration, to replace the BLU-82 Daisy Cutter blast weapon dropped from MC-130s. The Pentagon has depleted its BLU-82 supply during the Afghanistan war. Initially, the service wanted to replace the bomb with a similarly sized 15,000-lb.-class weapon. But Steven F. Butler, director of engineering at the Air Armaments Center at Eglin AFB, Fla., says a 30,000-lb. version makes more sense, especially if the bombers are configured to drop such a penetrator. One advantage of putting the weapon on a bomber is that they would be able to operate at higher altitudes and be less vulnerable to air defenses than the low-flying MC-130s.
To thwart underground targets containing weapons of mass destruction, the Pentagon also has tried to rush its Agent Defeat technology program. "We really have been pushing on accelerating this one," said Cindy M. Wilson, who oversees Advanced Concept Technology Demonstrations. The program is currently in three phases and would involve a J-1000 penetrator warhead with two-stage, high-incendiary fills. At the end of the demo, the military would have 20 weapons remaining for operational use.
Additionally, the Air Force is exploring whether it should add a booster to penetrator bombs to increase their impact velocity and thereby be able to defeat even harder targets or those farther underground. The most likely application would be the 2,000-lb. BLU-109, Butler said. With larger weapons, such as Big-BLU, there would be less payoff.
A problem for penetrator weapons is that the military still hasn't fielded the type of fuzes it needs to make these bombs most effective, Butler said. The Air Force has been working on a multiple-event fuze to control when various elements of a warhead detonate, but the device isn't in service.
Furthermore, the military is exploring different means to deny an adversary the use of underground structures if they can't be destroyed. One method drawing increased attention involves directed-energy weapons. The Air Force has been reluctant to talk about its highly classified radio-frequency pulse weapons efforts, but Butler said directed-energy (DE) applications are "viable now in niches. It is the new gun in town" that could be used today.
The introduction of DE technology still faces hurdles, such as the need for proper models so planners can determine whether to employ a conventional warhead or a DE weapon, Butler said.
Beyond traditional weapons, Butler believes there may be room to exploit robotics to attack underground facilities by dispersing bug-like devices over a target complex. Those bugs would then "infect" the target and try to cut off electricity or air-conditioning, or disable the facility through other means.
The focus right now for senior military planners is less on the weapon than on the supporting elements needed to better utilize existing munitions. "The thing we're lacking is the ability to generate the target [information] we need to employ precision," said Rear Adm. James M. Zortman, commander of the Naval Air Force Atlantic fleet. Especially with fleeting targets, it takes too long to obtain weapon coordinates to attack them, planners frequently complain.
The weapons community has been pursuing several initiatives to address that shortfall. Both the Air Force and Navy have separate hypersonic-speed missile developments underway that would put a weapon on target much faster, although a fielded system is still several years away.
Moreover, to tackle the problem, the Office of Naval Research has made time-critical strike one of its areas of emphasis in the Future Naval Capabilities activity, a research area on which the Navy wants to spend at least $500 million annually to help modernize the service, says Mike B. Deitchman, director of strike technology at ONR. The time-critical strike element will focus on weapons, sensors and tools to more rapidly pass information to an aircraft or ship firing ordnance.
The Air Force is investigating several other technologies, including ultralong-endurance loitering munitions. The service has been working with Lockheed Martin on the powered Low-Cost Autonomous Attack System (Locaas) that can find and attack a Scud launcher or similar target. But the service now is interested in a munition that could fly a lot longer, perhaps days, Butler said. The device would require highly efficient propulsion systems. To support such a development project, the service is investigating compact, high-lift-over-drag airframes, flash laser radar seekers and smaller antijam GPS receivers. By loitering over an area, the weapon could strike a target immediately if it emerges.
Another concept under study is "sleeper weapons" that would be an evolution of unattended ground sensor technology. The armed tactical unattended ground (Atug) device would be air-dropped and remain in position until cued by an outside source, at which point it would eject a missile or warhead to attack a nearby target. Butler said a notional Atug would weigh 2,000 lb., including a 1,000-lb. weapon. The device would be engineered so it doesn't explode unless triggered from the outside, to avoid proliferating more mine-like equipment.
One technology that could represent a major breakthrough if it were engineered well involves automatic target recognition algorithms, said Donald C. Baker, the Army's deputy program executive officer for tactical missiles. He told industry representatives at a Precision Strike Assn. conference that it would be ideal "if we could find some way to take the man out of the loop."
But not everyone in the military agrees. Maj. Gen. Dan Leaf, the Air Force's requirements chief, thinks removing human intervention and moving to fully automatic operations is a mistake. Instead, the technology should be used to help cue operators and make their job easier, he said.
While much of the Pentagon's focus has been on ground targets, some Air Force officials continue to advocate for a new air-to-air weapon to replace the AIM-120 Amraam and, eventually, the AIM-9X Sidewinder to attack lower radar-cross-section threats. Interest in a new dual-range weapon has fluctuated over time and recently was slated for a 2006-07 development start. But that has been pushed back, and interest at higher echelons of the service is ebbing. Butler noted that Amraam will likely undergo extensive upgrades to address more modern threats.
The delay could derail the missile concept entirely. Butler indicated that the maturation of DE technology means a new missile may not be required.
Illustration
Photo: Photograph: Development of a 30,000-lb. blast bomb to replace the BLU-82 would allow the Air Force to use B-2s rather than MC-130s to employ the weapon. DASH 2/RICK LLINARES
x92 Fulghum, David A; Wall, Robert : Small UAVs To Carry Disposable Pulse Weapons
2002-10
Aviation Week & Space Technology 157.18 (Oct 28, 2002): 60.
Abstract (summary)
Radio-frequency-pulse energy weapons that emit short powerful bursts to damage electrical equipment and computer memories have so far been designed by US and British researchers as relatively large systems that require at least a cruise missile-size platform to carry them. BAE Systems designers are eyeing much smaller energy weapons for inexpensive UAVs with a wingspan of a few feet. One purported advantage of directed energy (DE) - in particular high-power radio frequency (HPRF) and high-power microwave (HPM) weapons - is that they do not harm physical structures such as public buildings, apartment houses or schools. However, the effective range of these pulse weapons is very short.
Full Text:
Radio-frequency-pulse energy weapons that emit short powerful bursts to damage electrical equipment and computer memories have so far been designed by U.S. and British researchers as relatively large systems that require at least a cruise missile-size platform to carry them. BAE Systems designers are eyeing much smaller energy weapons for inexpensive UAVs with a wingspan of a few feet.
One purported advantage of directed energy (DE)--in particular high-power radio frequency (HPRF) and high-power microwave (HPM) weapons--is that they don't harm physical structures such as public buildings, apartment houses or schools. However, the effective range of these pulse weapons is very short.
"What if you're trying to take out an air defense system that's on top of a hospital?" said Aaron J. Penkacik, vice president for advanced systems and technology. "A cruise missile-sized RF device is not always what you need. While it may disable the air defenses, it could also inflict major damage to a structure, even without a warhead. A smaller RF device may be more suitable."
While BAE Systems personnel would not address the concept, U.S. Air Force officials indicated that the service has been looking at small UAVs that could fly within a few feet of an antenna, possibly even attaching itself, and then disable the site with an energy spike, jam the signal or insert false targets. By being that close, the jammer would require only relatively low power to achieve great effectiveness.
A British-developed HPRF device has at least been tested on a cruise missile or UAV, Air Force officials said. And, as evidence of the Pentagon's long-term interest in the technology, U.S. industry is developing a reusable HPM weapon for the Block 30 version of Boeing's X-45 unmanned air combat vehicle.
BAE Systems is looking at a lightweight, inexpensive segment of the market.
"We have been pursuing some specialty, single large-pulse RF devices for homeland defense or special operations type applications," said Robert V. McDaniel, director of program operations for systems and technology. "The intent is to develop a disposable source to produce broad-band RF that is not focused on a single frequency. Our intention is to make one big RF pulse that is dirty enough that it can shut many [electronic devices] down."
For the applications that BAE Systems is looking at--delivering a blast of energy from within hundreds of feet of an antenna--the payload would need to be very small. Developmental systems described by U.S. Air Force officials as an option for limited operational use are as much as several feet long and weigh hundreds of pounds (AW&ST Oct. 7, p. 27.)
"It would need to fit on a UAV with about a 2-ft. wingspan," McDaniel said. "We have been developing small UAVs for a variety of applications over the past five years, and we think that carrying a small RF [weapon] payload may be a viable application. The power supply is a real challenge, but explosively pumped devices are attractive as a one-shot power supply."
A simplified explanation is that an explosion within a chamber can produce a plasma that, in turn, can generate an RF pulse if vented through a nozzle properly designed to focus the explosive force through a very strong magnetic field.
"It requires a carefully sized aperture so the explosion's gases can pass through at high velocity in the presence of a strong magnetic field," Penkacik said. The resulting plasma, we believe, can be converted into an RF pulse that is spectrally dirty--to affect a broad range of frequencies--and of sufficient intensity to disrupt or cause damage at short range."
Antenna technology is a crucial element for DE weapons, but may not be as much of an issue with this approach. "We think the pulse can be made directional enough without an antenna," he said. "You don't need a pencil point if you do it right. The difficult task with the antenna for a conventional DE system is to be carried on small UAVs. The tighter you try to focus the beam, the bigger the antenna has to be. In our approach, you may not need any more antenna than that provided by the nozzle."
As to future conflicts, "We're going to see scenarios that require that kind of capability," McDaniel said. "You will want to take out the front end of an air defense system without damaging anything else."
Not everyone is expected to readily embrace this novel approach even if it proves to be successful. "There's an operational bias," said one electronics specialist. "People are used to having standoff-jammers that operate at very high power and long range that can block air defenses rather than something small that can get in close. Computer modeling and simulation will help demonstrate what they can do."
BAE's initial concepts include air dropping small UAVs from larger ones or from manned aircraft. They can be gliders or carry electrically driven propellers for longer range. The latter is a likely option for ground-launched UAVs that could be hand or bungee-launched.
Illustration
Photo: Photograph: Small UAVs with miniaturized directed energy weapons would fly close to enemy air defense radars to disable them.
x93 Tuttle, Rich : Raytheon, TRW begin effort to develop solid state laser weapons
2002-12
Aerospace Daily 204.49 (Dec 10, 2002): 4.
Abstract (summary)
The $16.9 million contract to Raytheon and $21.4 million contract to TRW will support two phases of work, with an option for a third. Raytheon said the first phase is a 14-month laboratory demonstration of the feasibility of scaling the proposed technology to about 10 kilowatts with a high-quality beam. Ten months after Phase 1, Raytheon said, Phase 2 must demonstrate 25 kilowatts in the lab with a high-quality beam and show how it would achieve pre-production capability. Phase 3, according to Raytheon, is a separately funded option to deliver a 25-kilowatt brassboard, or laboratory mockup, to a government lab 12 months after Phase 2.
Both companies are optimistic. Raytheon demonstrated a 2.6-kilowatt solid-state laser earlier this year. "It took a heck of a lot of work to get there," spokeswoman [Sabrina Steele] said, but "our belief is once you prove at 25 kilowatts, and you verify that that architecture and the setup and the materials get you there, that it would be much easier to scale it to 100 kilowatts. Technically, it's more difficult to go from 2.6 kilowatts to 25 kilowatts, than from 25 to 100."
Full Text
Air Force contracts to Raytheon Co. and TRW Inc. mark the first significant funding for research and development on solid-state laser weapons, putting this class of lasers on the road to someday catching their more mature chemical laser relatives, officials of both companies said.
The companies on Dec. 6 received Air Force Research Laboratory awards to demonstrate 25-kilowatt lasers in 2004.
"This contract is a big step on the path to a 100-kilowatt laser, which is truly weapons grade," Mike Booen, Raytheon's vice president of Directed Energy Weapons, said in a statement. "The 25-kilowatt laser will represent an initial laser capability with promising military utility."
Jackie Gish, TRW's director of directed energy technology and products, said in a statement that the program "will open the door to many new military applications for high-energy lasers, ranging from electronic warfare tasks such as blinding or destruction of enemy sensors to air defense or ship self-defense."
In a telephone interview, Gish said while solid-state lasers have been around for some time - the very first laser was an SSL - "they just haven't been at the powers, nor have they been funded at the levels of the chemical lasers."
She said the chemical laser on the Boeing 747-based Airborne Laser aircraft, for instance, "is orders of magnitude more powerful than the solid-state lasers," even those envisioned by the end of this program.
Applications for solid-state lasers include use on fighter aircraft and ships. Sabrina Steele, a spokeswoman for Raytheon's El Segundo, Calif., unit, said her company is working with Lockheed Martin on the idea of installing a solid-state laser on the Joint Strike Fighter (DAILY, Sept. 23). The Navy's DD(X) family of ships also might be candidates. "The sky's the limit," she said.
One advantage of solid-state lasers, Gish said, is they don't have the logistics train of chemical lasers. Battlefield generators, for instance, could support them.
The $16.9 million contract to Raytheon and $21.4 million contract to TRW will support two phases of work, with an option for a third. Raytheon said the first phase is a 14-month laboratory demonstration of the feasibility of scaling the proposed technology to about 10 kilowatts with a high-quality beam. Ten months after Phase 1, Raytheon said, Phase 2 must demonstrate 25 kilowatts in the lab with a high-quality beam and show how it would achieve pre-production capability. Phase 3, according to Raytheon, is a separately funded option to deliver a 25-kilowatt brassboard, or laboratory mockup, to a government lab 12 months after Phase 2.
Both companies are optimistic. Raytheon demonstrated a 2.6-kilowatt solid-state laser earlier this year. "It took a heck of a lot of work to get there," spokeswoman Steele said, but "our belief is once you prove at 25 kilowatts, and you verify that that architecture and the setup and the materials get you there, that it would be much easier to scale it to 100 kilowatts. Technically, it's more difficult to go from 2.6 kilowatts to 25 kilowatts, than from 25 to 100."
TRW's Gish said, "We think we have an approach that will work. We've done 5 [kilowatts] with good beam quality, so we're not starting at [very low] levels. Yes, it's challenging, and yes, it will be an exciting program, but we think we have an approach that will really work and get us there."
x94 John P. Geis II : DIRECTED ENERGY WEAPONS ON THE BATTLEFIELD: A NEW VISION FOR 2025
2003
DIRECTED ENERGY WEAPONS ON THE BATTLEFIELD: A NEW VISION FOR 2025 by John P. Geis II, Lieutenant Colonel, USAF, April 2003.
Occasional Paper No. 32, Center for Strategy and Technology, Air War College, Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama
x95 Trimble, Stephen : U.S. Air Force already preparing for JSF stores challenge
2003-02
Aerospace Daily 205.34 (Feb 21, 2003): 5.
Abstract (summary)
An Air Force office here has tripled its staff working on the aircraft-stores compatibility project for JSF, said Lt. Col. Steve Hoernlein, chief of the technology integration division for the Air Force's Seek Eagle Office.
Earlier this week, the JSF project was a key focus of the 2003 Aircraft-Stores Compatibility Symposium in nearby Destin, Fla., Hoernlein said. The meeting assembled representatives from the JSF office, each U.S. customer and 13 foreign militaries. The conference also focused on new challenges projected for future unmanned warplanes anddirected energy weapons.
Full Text
The task of certifying the weapons store configurations for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter already is drawing major interest even though the fighter is years away from conducting its first live-fire tests.
The issue is complicated by the multiple certification standards used by the U.S. armed services and at least one foreign military, the United Kingdom. It is among several compatibility hurdles confronting a program that is tailored for a community of widely different customers.
An Air Force office here has tripled its staff working on the aircraft-stores compatibility project for JSF, said Lt. Col. Steve Hoernlein, chief of the technology integration division for the Air Force's Seek Eagle Office.
Earlier this week, the JSF project was a key focus of the 2003 Aircraft-Stores Compatibility Symposium in nearby Destin, Fla., Hoernlein said. The meeting assembled representatives from the JSF office, each U.S. customer and 13 foreign militaries. The conference also focused on new challenges projected for future unmanned warplanes anddirected energy weapons.
Aircraft stores compatibility plays a major role in aircraft design. Stores, or weapons such as bombs and missiles, must be configured on the airplane in a way that is safe during all ground and flight operations.
But the U.S. Air Force and Navy have different standards for certifying weapons configurations, Hoernlein said. That means configurations approved by the Air Force are not always accepted by the Navy, and vice versa. The current effort is focused on developing a universal standard that can be applied between the services and perhaps the JSF's international partners.
Another stores compatibility challenge is the unique stealth design of the F/A-22 and the JSF. Both carry bombs and missiles in closed weapons bays, a design previously used by the Air Force's retired F-111 fleet.
x96 Jefferson Morris : SOCOM pursuing fusion technologies to improve target views
2003-02
Aerospace Daily 205.37 (Feb 26, 2003): 5.
Abstract (summary)
U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM) needs fusion technologies that will blend images from different sensors in real time to provide the most useful view of a target, according to Patrick Gardner, science adviser at SOCOM's Office of Advanced Technology.
SOCOM is interested in developing the capability to fuse images from unmanned sensors in different locations, according to Gardner. However, as the number of sensors on a platform increases, the problem of signature reduction becomes more acute.
To combine the best of both worlds, SOCOM is developing optical image fusion technologies for weapon boresight sensors that would allow users to toggle between sensors or blend them. For dismounted SOF, the key technology requirement is to keep these systems light, according to Gardner.
Full Text
U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM) needs fusion technologies that will blend images from different sensors in real time to provide the most useful view of a target, according to Patrick Gardner, science adviser at SOCOM's Office of Advanced Technology.
"In my assessment, probably the richest field for fusion in distributed sensors is in the area of deeply buried targets," Gardner said at the Institute for Defense and Government Advancement's (IDGA) Image Fusion conference in Alexandria, Va., Feb. 25.
"We still haven't found that 'magic sensor,' the one that will tell us where a facility is deep underground and what it's doing, how to defeat it, and how we know when we've defeated it," he said. "There just doesn't seem to be a single sensor out there that does that job."
SOCOM is exploring a variety of sensors to place on distributed platforms, including electromagnetic, acoustic, and seismic, Gardner said.
However, "we just always keep coming back to the same conclusion, that sensors are no silver bullet," he said. "We really are going to have to look at ways to fuse this information, and right now we're still not doing an adequate job in that area."
SOCOM is interested in developing the capability to fuse images from unmanned sensors in different locations, according to Gardner. However, as the number of sensors on a platform increases, the problem of signature reduction becomes more acute.
"If we're going to go to the paradigm of unmanned vehicles, throwing more and more sensor payloads on there, [the question is] are we also balancing the budget and maintaining a lower signature?" he said.
Dismounted soldiers
Because they usually operate under cover of darkness, most dismounted special operations forces (SOF) carry image intensification sensors and thermal sensors, both of which are effective in some circumstances, but not in others.
For example, although intensified vision provides higher resolution and allows for the reading of signs and other features, thermal sensors are much better for detecting personnel. Thermal sensors have difficulty seeing through glass, however.
To combine the best of both worlds, SOCOM is developing optical image fusion technologies for weapon boresight sensors that would allow users to toggle between sensors or blend them. For dismounted SOF, the key technology requirement is to keep these systems light, according to Gardner.
"We're holding onto the promise that we heard years ago ... that the image fusion community is going to give us smaller systems that weigh less and perform better," he said. "When you get out of the platforms and you have the operators on the ground, the premium becomes the weight of the equipment."
Tech thrust areas
Key technology thrust areas for SOCOM include unmanned systems, remote sensing, underwater communications, high-reachback communications, battery fuel cells, advanced training systems, bioengineering, directed energy weapons, and psychological operations.
SOCOM is interested in developing "SOF-peculiar" technologies, as opposed to technologies with broad applications across the services, Gardner said.
x97 Marc Selinger : House panel approves renewal of Defense Production Act
2003-03
Aerospace Daily 205.56 (Mar 25, 2003): 6.
Abstract (summary)
At a March 19 hearing of the House Financial Services subcommittee, Suzanne Patrick, deputy undersecretary of defense for industrial policy, urged Congress to reauthorize DPA, saying DOD has used Title I for such things as accelerating the delivery of an upgraded sensor package, the Multi-Spectral Targeting System (MTS), for Predator unmanned aerial vehicles armed with Hellfire missiles.
Three MTS systems originally were scheduled for delivery in March 2003, but using DPA, DOD "jumped this order to the head of the production queue" and received the systems in December 2001 instead, Patrick said. Since then, DOD has used DPA to accelerate 40 more MTS systems.
Full Text
A House panel has approved legislation to reauthorize the Defense Production Act (DPA) for four years, kicking off congressional efforts to extend a law aimed at ensuring the Pentagon has adequate production of vital equipment and materials.
The House Financial Services technology subcommittee approved the reauthorization bill March 20, and the full committee is expected to take up the measure within the next few weeks. The Senate Banking Committee has not yet announced its plans for renewing DPA.
DPA, originally enacted in 1950, was renewed in 2001 for two more years. It expires Sept. 30.
Title I of DPA allows the Defense Department to speed up industry delivery of equipment and materials that are crucial to national security. Title III authorizes financial incentives to create or maintain domestic production of vital defense items.
At a March 19 hearing of the House Financial Services subcommittee, Suzanne Patrick, deputy undersecretary of defense for industrial policy, urged Congress to reauthorize DPA, saying DOD has used Title I for such things as accelerating the delivery of an upgraded sensor package, the Multi-Spectral Targeting System (MTS), for Predator unmanned aerial vehicles armed with Hellfire missiles.
Three MTS systems originally were scheduled for delivery in March 2003, but using DPA, DOD "jumped this order to the head of the production queue" and received the systems in December 2001 instead, Patrick said. Since then, DOD has used DPA to accelerate 40 more MTS systems.
"We all are aware of the dramatic impact armed Predators had in waging war in Afghanistan," Patrick said.
Better weapons eyed
Ronald Sega, DOD's director of defense research and engineering, testified before the House subcommittee that DOD has eight active Title III projects and is starting two new ones this year, including one that will establish production capacity for yttrium barium copper oxide, a high-temperature superconductor that could significantly enhance the development of directed energy weapons.
Title III projects that DOD began in fiscal 2002 include maintaining production of radiation hardened microelectronics for strategic missile and space systems, and establishing a domestic production capacity for rigid-rod ultra-high strength polymeric materials, which could be used as metal substitutes for critical weapon systems.
Credit: Marc Selinger (marc_selinger@AviationNow.com)
x98 Levi, Michael A : The case against new nuclear weapons
2003-03
Issues in Science and Technology; Spring 2003; 19, 3; ProQuest Science Journals pg. 63
The case against new nuclear weapons
Levi, Michael A
Issues in Science and Technology; Spring 2003; 19, 3; ProQuest Science Journals pg. 63
This article is adapted in part from Michael Levi's paper "Fire in the HOle: Nuclear and Non-Cnuclear Options for Counterproliferation" (Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2002).
{mcb: Disinfo.}
Subsequently, however, international weapons inspectors, aided by Iraqi defectors, discovered that those targets had been the mere tip of a vast Iraqi system for producint and storing weapons of mass destruction. Had the military used nuclear weapons to bomb all known chemical facilities during the Gulf War, the United States would have made barely a dent in Iraq's deadly capability while incurring massive political backlash as people died from the accompanying nuclear fallout.
...
In Afghanistan, U.S. efforts to eliminate the Taliban and Al Qaeda were hindered by the difficulty of tracking down their underground hideouts. Intelligence technology, which relied heavily on detecting mechanical equipment, power lines, and communications systems to identify hidden facilities, floundered in the face of a backward enemy who employed none of the technologies being searched for. Osama bin Laden is still alive not because the United States lacked powerful weaponry, but because the U.S. intelligence could not find him in the caves of Tora Bora.
...
Based on the intelligence community's knowledge..., it is apparent that a five-kiloton ground-penetrating nuclear weapon could destroy it. This attack would produce a moderate amount of nuclear fallout, the preceise nature of which would depend on whether the weapon was detonated inside the facility or in the surrounding earth... Such a blast would kill every human being within approximately 15 square kilometers, according to calculations by Robert Nelson of Princeton University... [C]oncerns about fallout would require medical monitoring for civilians as far as 20 kilometers downwind from the facility. U.S. troups in the zone would have to halt operations or risk being exposed to fallout.
...
If the facility were operating, then conventional electromagnetic pulse weapons -- recently added to the U.S. arsenal -- might be applied to destroy or disable equipment inside.
++++
More reading:
Robert Nelson, "Low-Yield Earth Penetrating Nuclear Weapons," Science and Global Security 10, 2002.
U.S. Department of Energy and Department of Defense, "United States Nuclear Posture Review", 2002
Stephen Younger, "Nuclear Weapons in the Twenty-First Century" (Los Alamos National Laboratory, 2000).
x99 Lopez, Ramon; Sweetman, Bill. : The revolution will not be piloted
2003-06
Popular Science 262.6 (June 2003): 60.
Abstract (summary)
Abstract
For nearly 70 years, aeronautical visionaries have been touting the promise of robotic aircraft. Now, finally, that potential is being realized. From micro spies to stealthy bombers, here are the UAVs that are making it happen.
Full Text
Unmanned aerial vehicles have lately been generating headlines as never before. When a Predator fired a Hellfire missile into a car full of suspected terrorists in Yemen last November, it seemed a watershed validation of the "hunt and destroy" role for UAVs. Days before the start of the Iraq war, Secretary of State Colin Powell warned that an Iraqi UAV program uncovered by weapons inspectors could be a means for delivering biological or chemical weapons--though the technology was reported by The New York Times to be painfully primitive. Meanwhile, the effectiveness of American UAVs would soon be demonstrated: When U.S. troops reached Baghdad's doorstep, 10 or more types of UAV were with them, ranging from backpackable, soldier-launched recon vehicles to the warhorse Global Hawk surveillance craft and the Predator, which knocked out an anti-aircraft gun.
UAVs are here, more are coming, and they will ultimately transform aviation, military and civil. The concept is surprisingly old: In 1935, POPSCI described "thrilled crowds" in England watching an RAF demonstration of a radio-controlled biplane with a 10-mile range. "Spectacular wartime possibilities are forecast" for robot aircraft, the article noted. Virtually all WWII aircraft were piloted, of course, though a German UAV program called Mistel spooked the British.
The Pentagon has spent more than $25 billion on UAV development since the 1950s, but has had trouble settling on missions and standards; programs have been repeatedly replaced or scrapped. Yet momentum is clearly on the side of UAV deployment because the relevant technologies are finally able to address the challenges of onboard intelligence, weight vs. power, and autonomy vs. remote control. New composite materials make it possible for UAVs to be durable yet lightweight. Sensors have shrunk and become more powerful. Satellite communications provide more of the broadband power that's required for complex, real-time operations.
Dozens of UAVs are under development--from toylike ones with 1-hp engines to massive ones that rival fighter jets. Some will fly ultralong or ultra-high-altitude missions. And UAVs have potential uses far beyond the military: Robotic aircraft are already being used by researchers, fishermen, weather forecasters, even filmmakers (see "Civil Engineering," page 62). But engineers still must figure out how to prevent mid-air collisions: In 2001, there were already enough machines aloft--mostly military UAVs passing through controlled airspace on their way to Bosnia or Kosovo--to cause concern among European air-traffic controllers. Two months ago, NASA demonstrated a 35 GHz radar-based collision-avoidance system for UAVs (it was tested on Proteus, a research craft built by Scaled Composites in Mojave, California). This is a key development: Though UAVs have recently made a crucial leap forward in sophistication (some were rushed into service in Iraq before being fully tested), the infrastructure for a UAV-populated world doesn't yet exist. Here is a field guide to the major UAV families and species.
CLASS 1 MICRO UAVs
No military micros are yet in production. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is developing pint-size helicopter-like drones that weigh about five pounds and measure some nine inches in diameter. Designed to fit inside a soldier's backpack, they would conduct surveillance over short distances. Too small to carry much fuel or gear, early models will hold a 1-pound camera and wind down within an hour.
DARPA is eager to integrate micro UAVs, as well as larger versions, into its Future Combat Systems program. This is an envisioned network of autonomous aircraft and ground vehicles that would handle a wide range of military missions. Micro UAVs might ride into the field on a robotic tank, for example, then fly up to a tree or building to "perch and stare." At DARPA's behest, D-Star Engineering in Shelton, Connecticut, has developed a hand-size engine for micro UAVs that weighs 22 ounces and produces 1.3 hp. The tiny engine, which runs on jet or diesel fuel, is quieter and more powerful and guzzles less fuel than a model airplane engine of comparable size.
iStar
DEVELOPER Allied Aerospace, Newport News, Virginia
DIAMETER 9 in. HEIGHT 12 in.
WEIGHT 5 lbs.
RADIUS OF ACTION 5.5 miles
THE LOWDOWN DARPA is flight-testing the iStar, which would be fitted with a sensor suite (electro-optical, infrared, radar). iStar hovers like a helicopter but also flies forward by pitching to a near-horizontal attitude. The iStar's lifted, augmented, ducted fan is reminiscent of a "ring wing" UAV that General Dynamics' Convair division tested in the 1980s. The iStar flies as high as 16,000 feet and runs for up to an hour.
STATUS In development
HeliSpy
DEVELOPER Micro Autonomous Systems, Del Mar, California
DIAMETER 11 in. HEIGHT 27 in.
WEIGHT 6 lbs.
RADIUS OF ACTION 25 miles
THE LOWDOWN Originally developed for DARPA and now aimed primarily at the commercial marketplace, the HeliSpy II is fully autonomous; it can also be controlled by a computer-game-style joystick and reprogrammed in the air. Powered by an inexpensive model aircraft engine, the $25,000 craft switches from vertical to horizontal flight to gain speed. One potential use: Police SWAT teams could send them through a window to search a building where terrorists are suspected to be hiding.
STATUS In limited production
Wasp
DEVELOPER AeroVironment, Monrovia, California
LENGTH 8 in.
WEIGHT 6 oz.
RADIUS OF ACTION 0.6 mile
THE LOWDOWN This 13-inch "flying wing" recently set an endurance record, flying for 1 hour 47 minutes, more than three times the previous micro-UAV record, set two years ago. The radio-controlled Wasp has an ingenious design: Its wing is made of a novel synthetic "multifunctional" material--a hot research area for DARPA--that, in addition to serving as a wing, supplies electrical energy for propulsion. The next-gen Wasp will incorporate a simple autopilot and carry a color video camera.
STATUS In early development
CLASS 2 MINI UAVs
This class of UAV--vehicles that are up to 6 feet long and weigh up to 90 pounds--emerged 20 years ago; some were used in the 1991 Gulf War. Their military mission: short-range, "over the hill" reconnaissance forays to detect nearby threats in the field.
The early minis' relative bulkiness and lack of technological sophistication meant soldiers couldn't employ them on-the-fly during battle. Instead, captured images were beamed to operators based in a trailer located behind front lines. Those limitations, combined with the advent of lightweight composite materials and miniaturized sensors, inspired the development of micro UAVs. Meanwhile, newer minis, like Dragon Eye and ScanEagle, have resuscitated the category. Because mini UAVs have greater range and endurance than micros, they will continue to play a role in military missions even after their diminutive counterparts come into their own.
Pointer
DEVELOPER AeroVironment
LENGTH 6 ft.
WEIGHT 10 lbs.
RADIUS OF ACTION 3.5 miles
THE LOWDOWN Prop-driven, with a 9-foot wingspan, the FQM-151 Pointer carries a 2-pound payload and is launched by hand. Six Pointer systems are employed at the urban warfare training center at Fort Benning, Georgia. Others serve as testbeds for miniaturized sensors at the Drug Enforcement Administration. Recently the Pointer was used to keep an eye on demonstrators at Puerto Rico's controversial Vieques bombing range. Equipped with an infrared video camera, the UAV was used to spot and observe trespassers.
STATUS First deployed by the U.S. military in 1988; sent to Iraq for use by special forces
Exdrone/Dragon Drone
DEVELOPER BAI Aerosystems, Easton, Maryland
LENGTH 5 ft.
WEIGHT 90 lbs.
RADIUS OF ACTION 30 miles
THE LOWDOWN Originally built as expendable communications jammers, BQM-147A Exdrones (the name stands for "expendable drone") were, with the addition of a gimbaled electro-optical sensor, reconfigured for reconnaissance work in the late 1990s. Forty-five Exdrones saw action in the 1991 Gulf War.
STATUS In service with the Pentagon since the early 1980s; now used primarily for war games and other military exercises
Dragon Eye
DEVELOPER Naval Research Laboratory and Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory
LENGTH 2.5 ft.
WEIGHT 5 lbs.
RADIUS OF ACTION 2.9 miles
THE LOWDOWN This twin-prop airplane with a 4-foot wingspan breaks into five pieces to fit into a rucksack. No ground station is required; the person who's using it is simply equipped with a wearable laptop and communications control box. Hand-or bungee-launched, it carries daylight, low light and infrared imaging systems.
STATUS Though still in development, Dragon Eye was pressed into combat in Iraq. AeroVironment and BAI Aerosystems are competing for the production contract.
ScanEagle
DEVELOPER Insitu Group, Bingen, Washington Length 4 ft.
WEIGHT 33 lbs.
RADIUS OF ACTION 465 miles
THE LOWDOWN Launched from a catapult, ScanEagle is plucked from the air with a wire-and-hook mechanism dubbed SkyHook. With a 10-foot wingspan, ScanEagle can stay airborne for up to 15 hours; an engine under development will allow it to fly for 60 hours and about 5,000 miles.
STATUS In limited production
CLASS 3 TACTICAL UAVs
Larger than minis, tactical UAVs perform similar intelligence-gathering and target-acquisition missions but have greater carrying capacity and endurance. Whereas minis typically have a 1,000-foot ceiling, a tactical UAV like the Shadow 200 can soar to 15,000 feet and fly for up to four hours.
The downside: Deploying tactical UAVs can require a major investment of time and equipment. Take the Shadow 200 system. In addition to its four air vehicles (they're flown one at a time), the system includes two ground control stations, two ground data terminals, a portable ground control station, four remote video terminals, a hydraulic launcher, a landing system and arresting gear. Twenty-two operators and maintenance personnel are required to operate the system.
Shadow 200
DEVELOPER AAI Corp., Hunt Valley, Maryland
LENGTH 11 ft.
WEIGHT 325 lbs.
RADIUS OF ACTION 78 miles
THE LOWDOWN The RQ-7A Shadow 200, which can carry up to 60 pounds, is fitted with electro-optical and infrared sensors. It has a 13-foot wingspan.
STATUS Now in production, with 41 systems currently funded
Pioneer
DEVELOPER AAI Corp. and Israel Aircraft Industries
LENGTH 14 ft.
WEIGHT 452 lbs.
RADIUS OF ACTION 115 miles
THE LOWDOWN Launched by rockets or a catapult or from a runway, the RQ-2 Pioneer recovers into a net or with arresting gear. During Operation Desert Storm, a detachment of Iraqi soldiers surrendered to an unarmed Pioneer operating from the battleship USS Wisconsin and were taken prisoner by Allied forces.
STATUS Debuted in 1986; being upgraded to extend its operations until 2009
Dragon Warrior
DEVELOPER Naval Research Laboratory and Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory
LENGTH 7 ft.
WEIGHT 230 lbs.
RADIUS OF ACTION 58 miles (est.)
THE LOWDOWN This fully autonomous vehicle is designed for recon and communications relay missions. Its motorcycle-inspired engine is fuel-injected and spark-assisted with a liquid-cooled, 3-cylinder in-line configuration.
STATUS No flight trials yet
GoldenEye
DEVELOPER Aurora Flight Sciences, Manassas, Virginia
DIAMETER 3 ft. Height 5.5 ft.
WEIGHT 150 lbs.
RADIUS OF ACTION 500 miles (est.)
THE LOWDOWN A stealthy small-package delivery system, it's meant to quietly deposit a 10-or 20-pound sensor behind enemy lines, then scoot. Wings enable it to transition to horizontal flight after getting airborne.
STATUS At press time, first flight was set for May.
Hummingbird
DEVELOPER Frontier Systems, Irvine, California
LENGTH 35 ft.
WEIGHT 5,000 lbs.
RADIUS OF ACTION 1,500 miles
THE LOWDOWN The A160 Hummingbird flies up to 35,000 feet high. It sips fuel thanks to its flight-control system and a hingeless, variable-speed rotor system.
STATUS In flight testing for DARPA
Fire Scout
DEVELOPER Northrop Grumman, San Diego, California
LENGTH 23 ft.
WEIGHT 2,650 lbs.
RADIUS OF ACTION 173 miles
THE LOWDOWN Based on a Schweizer civil helicopter, the RQ-8A Fire Scout is designed to operate from warships, finding targets for strike aircraft.
STATUS In flight testing
Eagle Eye
DEVELOPER Bell Helicopter, Hurst, Texas
LENGTH 18 ft.
WEIGHT 2,247 lbs.
RADIUS OF ACTION Unknown
THE LOWDOWN With its rotors in vertical position, the TR911X Eagle Eye can take off, hover, and land like a traditional rotary-wing aircraft. By tilting its rotors to the horizontal position, it can fly with the speed and range of a turboprop fixed-wing airplane.
STATUS Selected by U.S. Coast Guard as a shipboard item
Dragonfly
DEVELOPER Boeing, Chicago
LENGTH 17.7 ft.
WEIGHT 1,785 lbs.
RADIUS OF ACTION 108 miles (est.)
THE LOWDOWN Aviation Week recently called the X-50A Dragonfly Canard Rotor/Wing "the first helicopter to deliberately stop its rotor in flight." The rotor becomes the aircraft's wings after a helicopter-like takeoff. Diverter valves direct the thrust to the rotor blade tips for rotary flight or to the aft jet nozzle for high-sub-sonic-speed fixed-wing cruising.
STATUS: Two demonstrators to fly as early as this month
CLASS 4 HALE UAVs
High-altitude, long-endurance (HALE) UAVs are typically the size of business jets or 737s and carry powerful, sophisticated synthetic aperture radars and other sensors. Cruising at altitudes between 45,000 and 65,000 feet, they survey large geographic areas and provide near-real-time, high-resolution reconnaissance imagery. With their ability to provide the big picture, HALE UAVs fulfill much the same function as the manned Lockheed U-2 spy plane. HALE vehicles can stay aloft for 24 hours at a time. They are controlled remotely by pilots on the ground; thanks to satellite links that convey images and commands in real time, it's possible for an operator located in Nevada to fly a Predator or Global Hawk over Iraq.
Ultra-LEAP
DEVELOPER Boeing
LENGTH 45 ft.
WEIGHT Undetermined
RADIUS OF ACTION Undetermined
THE LOWDOWN This craft will run on electricity generated in a fuel cell by a chemical reaction involving hydrogen and oxygen. The engine would spit out water droplets instead of carbon dioxide and other pollutants generated by fuel-burning engines. Ultra-LEAP will have a 150-foot wingspan and carry a 250-pound payload. Its designers intend it to stay airborne for weeks at a time.
STATUS On the drawing board; two prototypes are anticipated within two years.
Predator B
DEVELOPER General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, San Diego, California
LENGTH 36 ft.
WEIGHT 10,000 lbs.
RADIUS OF ACTION 460 miles
THE LOWDOWN The Predator B, or MQ-9A, is a beefed-up version of the reconnaissance drone that was armed with a pair of laser-guided Hellfire missiles during the Afghanistan conflict. The turboprop-powered B-model carries up to 10 missiles, compared to its predecessor's two. The B-model also operates 20,000 feet higher: at 45,000 to 60,000 feet.
STATUS In production
Global Hawk
DEVELOPER Northrop Grumman
LENGTH 44 ft.
WEIGHT 26,750 lbs.
RADIUS OF ACTION 6,214 miles
THE LOWDOWN The RQ-4A Global Hawk takes off and lands on a conventional runway. Carrying a 2,000-pound payload of sensors, it gathers intelligence day and night and in adverse weather. It can stay aloft up to 32 hours.
STATUS Still technically in engineering development, Global Hawks were used in Afghanistan and again this year in Iraq. The Air Force plans to field about 30 Global Hawks by the end of the decade and to purchase 51 in all.
Proteus
DEVELOPER Scaled Composites, Mojave, California
LENGTH 56 ft.
WEIGHT 12,510 lbs.
RADIUS OF ACTION 2,300 miles
THE LOWDOWN Though designed to fly autonomously, the Proteus has never fulfilled its original purpose and in every flight to date has been piloted. The craft was built to hover over cities at altitudes of 60,000 feet and function as a local broadband communications hub, but that plan fizzled when the telecommunications industry crashed. Now leased by NASA, the Proteus recently carried a prototype collision avoidance system for UAVs; one of its next tasks will be to hold a target to be shot at during a test of the military's new airborne laser.
STATUS First flight in 1998; now used for atmospheric research and other high-altitude tests
CLASS 5 UCAVs
No unmanned combat air vehicles (UCAVs) are yet in production, though the Predator, a reconnaissance drone, has been modified to serve this function. UCAVs will be about the size of the current generation of manned fighters, such as the F/A-18E Super Hornet that was sent to Iraq. Designed for dangerous deep-strike bombing missions, they could be preprogrammed with the GPS coordinates of a target, then let loose to take off, carry out the mission, and return home without human intervention. When desirable, they could also be piloted from the ground. Sending an unmanned plane into perilous territory keeps pilots out of danger. But UCAVS can't perform the fast-response missions a pilot can; they will not be equipped with air-to-air missiles or guns for dogfighting.
X-47A Pegasus Naval UCAV Demonstrator
DEVELOPER Northrop Grumman
LENGTH 28 ft.
WEIGHT 4,000 lbs.
RADIUS OF ACTION Undetermined
THE LOWDOWN Northrop Grumman's prototype for the U.S. Navy/DARPA UCAV, the Pegasus flying wing is a subscale model with a 28-foot wingspan. It was built in part to demonstrate that an unmanned combat air vehicle could make an autonomous takeoff and landing from an aircraft carrier.
STATUS Made its maiden flight in February
X-45
DEVELOPER Boeing
LENGTH 26 ft.
WEIGHT 12,000 lbs.
RADIUS OF ACTION Undetermined
THE LOWDOWN The X-45 is the first UAV designed from inception for combat. DARPA and the Air Force are currently flight-testing two X-45A prototypes. Next, Boeing will build two X-45Bs, which will be more capable and one-third larger than the X-45A. An X-45C is on the drawing board. It will more closely represent an operational UCAV.
STATUS: Fielding of the X-45B or X-45C could occur by 2008.
Unmanned Combat Armed Rotorcraft (UCAR)
DEVELOPER Undetermined
LENGTH Undetermined
WEIGHT Undetermined
RADIUS OF ACTION Undetermined
THE LOWDOWN The UCAR is the Army's desired unmanned combat air vehicle. This futuristic, robotic vertical-takeoff-and-landing aircraft would perform armed recon and attack missions, alone or with piloted rotorcraft. It would extend the reach of manned helicopter gunships and take their place on risky missions. The UCAR, which could be controlled from the cockpit of Army helicopters, will be designed to carry rockets, missiles and guns, as well as nonlethal anddirected-energy weapons.
STATUS Fielding might take place between 2013 and 2015.
Ramon Lopez is an aerospace and defense writer based in Washington, D.C.
Fun facts about Boeing's fuel-cell-powered Ultra-LEAP, collision avoidance systems and more at www.popsci.com/exclusive
Illustration
COLOR ILLUSTRATION: AURORA FLIGHT SCIENCES
[COVER]
FUTURE OF UNMANNED AVIATION
New Designs * Next Missions
Stealthy VTOL Recon
COLOR ILLUSTRATION: NASA
[COVER]
[FUTURE OF UNMANNED AVIATION
New Designs * Next Missions]
Collision-Avoidance Testbed
COLOR ILLUSTRATION: BOB SAULS/FRASSANITO & ASSOCIATES
[COVER]
[FUTURE OF UNMANNED AVIATION
New Designs * Next Missions]
High-Speed Attack UCAV
COLOR ILLUSTRATION: NORTHROP GRUMMAN
[COVER]
[FUTURE OF UNMANNED AVIATION
New Designs * Next Missions]
Carrier-Launched Drone
COLOR PHOTO: JOHN B. CARNETT
DRAGON EYE
COLOR PHOTO: COURTESY ALLIED AEROSPACE
ISTAR
COLOR PHOTO: COURTESY D-STAR ENGINEERING
MINI MOTOR D-Star Engineering built a thumb-size 0.1-hp engine.
It didn't provide enough power for hovering, so D-Star made a
1.3-hp version (below). The 0.1-hp one is now a battery charger.
COLOR PHOTO: COURTESY MAS
HELISPY
COLOR PHOTO: COURTESY DARPA
WASP
COLOR PHOTO: COURTESY US NAVY
DRAGON DRONE
COLOR PHOTO: COURTESY US MARINE CORPS
POINTER
COLOR PHOTO: COURTESY US NAVY
SCANEAGLE
COLOR PHOTO: COURTESY BOEING
DRAGON EYE
COLOR PHOTO: COURTESY NORTHROP GRUMMAN
FIRE SCOUT
COLOR PHOTO: COURTESY US NAVY
PIONEER
COLOR PHOTO: COURTESY DARPA
HUMMINGBIRD
COLOR PHOTO: COURTESY AURORA FLIGHT SCIENCES/ATHENA TECHNOLOGIES
GOLDENEYE
COLOR PHOTO: COURTESY NASA
PROTEUS
COLOR PHOTO: COURTESY GENERAL ATOMICS AERONAUTICAL SYSTEMS
PREDATOR B
COLOR PHOTO: COURTESY BOEING
ULTRA-LEAP
COLOR PHOTO: COURTESY NORTHROP GRUMMAN
GLOBAL HAWK
COLOR PHOTO: COURTESY BOEING
X-45A
x100 Marc Selinger : Navy office seeking more money for laser weapons
2003-07
Aerospace Daily 207.5 (Jul 8, 2003): 5.
Abstract (summary)
Capt. Roger McGinnis told The DAILY in a recent interview that he is seeking about $150 million over four years to demonstrate a solid state laser (SSL) for ships, including DDG-51 destroyers. McGinnis' office now is spending a few million dollars a year to study solid state lasers, which use electrically powered lamps or diodes to pump light into a solid lasing medium, such as crystal or glass.
Full Text
The head of the U.S. Navy's directed energy weapons programs said he hopes to secure hundreds of millions of dollars in additional funding in the coming years to develop ship-based laser weapons to counter cruise missiles and other threats.
Capt. Roger McGinnis told The DAILY in a recent interview that he is seeking about $150 million over four years to demonstrate a solid state laser (SSL) for ships, including DDG-51 destroyers. McGinnis' office now is spending a few million dollars a year to study solid state lasers, which use electrically powered lamps or diodes to pump light into a solid lasing medium, such as crystal or glass.
Ultimately, the Navy hopes to develop free electron lasers (FELs) for ships, partly because it is believed that FELs would be much more efficient than SSLs. In a FEL, electrons pass through a magnetic field, causing them to wiggle and release light.
McGinnis' office currently receives some funding for FEL work, including about $10 million a year from the Office of Naval Research, but hundreds of millions would be needed to meet the goal of starting to place FELs on ships in about 2015.
In a project the Navy has been involved with, the U.S. Energy Department's Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility produced first light from its 10 kilowatt FEL in June. The device is an upgraded version of the Jefferson Lab's one kilowatt FEL.
McGinnis also said that about $300 million is needed to build a maritime directed energy test center at Barking Sands, Hawaii. The dry environment at White Sands Test Center, N.M., the current test site for the military's directed energy programs, is significantly different than the one ships encounter at sea.
Lasers are seen as appealing because they could strike targets more quickly than missiles or other weapons now used by the Navy.
- Marc Selinger (marc_selinger@AviationNow.com)
Credit: Marc Selinger
x101 Dornheim, Michael A. : Navy Plans Precise Radars To Aim Beam Weapons
2003-08
Aviation Week & Space Technology 159.6 (Aug 11, 2003): 17.
NAVY GEARING UP FOR BEAM WEAPONS U.S. Navy DD(X) next-generation destroyers will carry higher frequency S-band rather than L-band search radars. The move would sacrifice radar range in exchange for more precise targeting. However, as directed-energy weapons such as lasers are introduced to combat, the ability to accurately point a narrow-beam device will be at a premium. Long-range surveillance will be conducted by lower frequency radars on aircraft and larger ships. The S-band radar will "improve the ability of the destroyer to track aircraft and missiles and to counterattack shore-based gun or missile batteries that attempt to strike the ship," a Navy memorandum said. The new radar technology will also be installed on the CG(X) cruiser. In its scaled-up form, the cruiser's radar will be able to perform ballistic missile defense. The lead ship construction contract for DD(X) is to be awarded in Fiscal 2005 for delivery in 2011.
Credit: Edited by Michael A. Dornheim
x102 Navy well-suited for directed energy weapons, England says
2003-09
Aerospace Daily 207.61 (Sep 29, 2003): 1.
Abstract (summary)
DIRECTED ENERGY: Directed energy weapons could be a "primary weapon" in the U.S. Navy's arsenal, according to secretary-nominee Gordon England.
Full Text
DIRECTED ENERGY: Directed energy weapons could be a "primary weapon" in the U.S. Navy's arsenal, according to secretary-nominee Gordon England. "The Navy has unique platforms to utilize this technology," England says in a statement submitted to the Senate Armed Services Committee. "Specifically, many Navy ships have large power generation capability and sufficient space and volume to ease design constraints," he says. "That said, directed energy weapons still require large R&D efforts to field effective weapons for the Navy."
x103 James M. Pethokoukis : H-bomb baby boom?
2003-10
Title:
H-bomb baby boom?
Authors:
Pethokoukis, James M.
Source:
U.S. News & World Report. 10/13/2003, Vol. 135 Issue 12, p48-48. 1p. 2 Color Photographs.
Document Type:
Article
Subject Terms:
*NUCLEAR weapons
*NUCLEAR warfare
*ARMED Forces
*PROJECTILES, Aerial
*NUCLEAR fission
*NUCLEAR fusion
Geographic Terms:
UNITED States
Company/Entity:
UNITED States. Congress
NAICS/Industry Codes:
921120 Legislative Bodies
People:
BETHE, Hans A. (Hans Albrecht), 1906-2005
Abstract:
Reports that small nuclear mines and shells, once part of the United States military's Cold War arsenal, could be poised for a revival after Congress lifted a ban on researching nuclear weapons with an explosive force of less than five kilograms. Possible uses of small nuclear weapons, including vaporizing buried weapons labs; Speculation that reintroduction of small weapons could pave the way for the development of a pure-fusion bomb, which could be more compact than today's nukes and yield almost no fallout, allowing armies to continue to move troops into an area where the bomb was used; Details of the technology behind the small bombs; Possibility of developing nuclear "bullets"; Challenge to scientists of how to spark fusion without fission, a big bang that produces fallout; Resistance of some scientists, including physicist Hans Bethe, to developing mini-nukes.
Full Text Word Count:
691
ISSN:
0041-5537
Accession Number:
10989385
Persistent link to this record (Permalink):
http://0-search.ebscohost.com.catalog.poudrelibraries.org/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=10989385&site=ehost-live
Cut and Paste:
H-bomb baby boom?
Database:
Academic Search Premier
Section:
Science & Society
Weapons
H-bomb baby boom?
To most people, what makes nuclear weapons so frightening is their immense power. But many arms-control experts think the scariest nukes are small ones, which could conceivably be used on the battlefield. Once part of the Cold War arsenal, small nuclear mines and shells were scrapped in 1991. But mininukes may be poised for a revival. Last May Congress lifted a 1993 ban on researching nukes with an explosive force of less than 5 kilotons of TNT (compared with hundreds of kilotons for many warheads today). And the Senate version of an energy spending bill now includes $6 million for research on new low-yield nuclear weapons, although so far the House bill does not.
If the House and Senate agree on funding, its first fruits will likely be smaller versions of existing devices. Planners see such baby bombs as a means of, for example, vaporizing buried weapons labs--although such uses would very likely release deadly radioactive fallout. But activists and researchers say that in the long run, the green light for research could also give a boost to an entirely new mininuke called a pure-fusion bomb. "By condoning mininukes, you are � opening the door to building even more advanced nukes such as pure-fusion weapons," says Jay Coghlan of Nuclear Watch of New Mexico.
Clean sweep. Pure-fusion bombs could be more compact than today's nukes and yield almost no fallout. Current devices get most of their power from hydrogen atoms fusing together, but it takes a mighty match--a fission blast--to spark the process. And fission means fallout. A pure-fusion weapon would emit plenty of killing radiation, but as short-lived neutrons. "You could move your troops in 48 hours, because there would be no fallout," says Arjun Makhijani of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research in Takoma Park, Md. That's a military advantage, but it could lower the threshold for using these weapons.
Fission also requires a critical mass of plutonium or uranium; without it, pure-fusion weapons "can be as small as you like, virtually atomic bullets," says Andre Gsponer of the Independent Scientific Research Institute in Geneva, which studies arms control. He thinks, however, that they will make their debut as ultrapotent cruise-missile warheads.
The technical hitch--a big one--is sparking fusion without fission. The $3.5 billion, stadium-size National Ignition Facility at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California will explore one approach. Starting in 2008, NIF will fire 192 laser beams at pea-size capsules of hydrogen isotopes, crushing and heating them to 100 million degrees to ignite fusion. NIF officials point out that they are not developing laser-powered bombs. "No, not from any aspect that you could possibly look at," says NIF chief George Miller. "It is not feasible, and we are not planning on doing it." NIF's mission is to study the possibility of civilian fusion power plants and do basic research to help assess the readiness of the existing nuclear arsenal. But what NIF reveals about triggering fusion without fission could prove useful to weapons designers, say some experts. Says Glen Wurden, a fusion physicist at Los Alamos National Laboratory: "Laser fusion works in a way very similar to a weapon."
Clues could also come from Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico, where the "Z machine" runs an enormous jolt of electric current through a bundle of very thin wires. The result is an imploding plasma, which emits a burst of X-rays that might catalyze fusion. Some theorists even speculate that morsels of antimatter could serve as the trigger, although so far physicists have created no more than a few antiatoms.
The hurdles could stretch the timetable to decades. But even in 1997, pure-fusion weapons seemed plausible enough for Hans Bethe, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist and veteran of the A-bomb effort, to urge President Clinton not to fund research on them. These days, little bombs are starting to loom bigger.
PHOTO (COLOR): LITTLE BANG. A 1960s "nuclear bazooka" and the National Ignition Facility. NIF's basic research on fusion might one day aid designers of new baby nukes.
PHOTO (COLOR)
~~~~~~~~
By James M. Pethokoukis/p>
x104 McKenna, Ted : FLASH IN THE PLAN
2003-12
FLASH IN THE PLAN: Directed-energy weapons remain more experimental than available
McKenna, Ted
Microwave Journal; Dec 2003; 46, 12; ProQuest Science Journals
pg. 80
During Operation Allied Force in the Balkans in the late '90s, the Russian news agency Tass ran a story quoting the Russian defense minister at the time as saying the US had dropped an e-bomb from a B-2 stealth bomber over Kosovo for the purpose of destroying radio and electronic equipment. Pentagon officials denied this. Moreover, the US has quelled rumors that it employed e-bombs in the Iraq War.
...
The US views extremely precise weapons as useful for, among other things, taking out phone networks, power grids, and command-and-control centers, while avoiding harming civilians or civilian infrastructure as much as possible. Sometimes the line between civil and military infrastructure is blurry, as in the case of Iraq, for example. A June 2001 report from the US Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics on "High Energy Laser Weapons Systems Applications" found that "high power lasers have the potential to change future military operations in dramatic ways" and that the US can "exploit current high energy laser technology to take advantage of speed-of-light engagement, precisely controlled efforts, deep magazines, low cost per shot and reduced logistics footprint."
...
Of course, directed-energy devices like RF jammers are standard equipment for many aircraft these days, effective for interfering with enemy radar or communications systems. But the various types of directed-energy weapons under development, the closest to being fielded are those that use lasers. ... The US Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) at Kirtland AFB, NM, for example, in conjunction with the Department of Defense's Joint Non-lethal Weapons Directorate, has developed a laser weapon that produces a burning sensation in people's skin. A project on which the US has spent about $40 millino over the last 10 years, the "active denial technology," as it is called is an alternative to tear gas or rubber bullts, beaming 95-GHz millimeter waves that penetrate just the first layer of skin to create a burning senation intended to encourage people to move away.
...
Figure 1 The Airborne Laser (ABL) program would use laser-equipped aircraft to shoot down ballistic missiles in the air but still over enemy territory. Two lasers do the job: a solid-state laser that measures and helps the ABL adjust for atmospheric conditions, and a chemical laser that does the actual damage. Boeing has successfully tested the mid-air refueling capabilities of the plane, which is a modified 747-100 freighter.
...
Meanwhile, in live-fire tests last fall of the joint US-Israeli Mobile Tactical High Energy Laser (MTHEL) -- a ground-based laser for shooting down incoming short-range rockets and artillery projectiles that the governments aim to have in the field by 2007 -- the system successfully shot down an artillery projectile in mid-air (Figure 2). Another project involving space-based lasers, which would mount lasers on orbiting satelites, has lately seen budget cuts by the US Congress and is at least decades away from deployment, according to a recent report from the Lexington Institute on directed-energy weapons.
Thus, these and other efforts to develop laser weapons remain in the developmental phase. Meanwhile, even less information is being made available about development of weapons based on the invisible, lower end of the electromagnetic spectrum. Nuclear weapons feature as one of their attributes the emission of large EM waves, which are particularly devastating when released at high altitudes (Figure 3). Because nuclear detonations create such extreme effects, military research arencies of the US and other countries hope to create EM weapons of a non-nuclear variety.
...
Figure 2 The Tactical High Energy Laser (THEL) is a ground-based system designed to shoot down airborne targets such as artillery shells, mortars and unmanned aerial vehicles. During tests in 2000 and 2001, it shot down a total of 25 Katyusha rockets. The US and Israel jointly funded development of the technology, and a compact, more transportable version is also being developed.
x105 Muellner, George K. : Battlefield 2030 Interoperability of a myriad of emerging broadband capabilities will become key
2003-12
Aviation Week & Space Technology 159.24 (Dec 15, 2003): 76-78.
Abstract (summary)
Traditional elements of combat power will still be relevant years from now, but their employment will be part of a significantly different concept of operations (Conops). This new Conops will rapidly and decisively exploit superior knowledge of the battlefield, the enemy and home forces to prosecute attacks against the enemy at the tactical, operational and strategic levels in near-simultaneous fashion. The primary determinant of the future battlefield is the ability of the military to reinvent or transform itself to adapt to the environment. True revolutions in military affairs only occur when militaries transform Conops, organizations, and cultures to exploit emergent technologies fully. Future warfare will be dominated by the control of information. Properly exploited, information produces knowledge. Thus, gaining and maintaining information superiority will be an imperative. This will be challenging as adversaries will have access to many of the same capabilities.
Full Text
The determinants of success on the battlefield of 2030 will not be aircraft, ships or tanks, but rather, the exploitation of knowledge and speed of execution based on that knowledge. Clearly, traditional elements of combat power will still be relevant, but their employment will be part of a significantly different concept of operations (Conops). This new Conops will rapidly and decisively exploit superior knowledge of the battlefield, the enemy and "home" forces to prosecute attacks against the enemy at the tactical, operational and strategic levels in near-simultaneous fashion.
Through the ages, warfare has changed dramatically with the emergence of new technologies. These advances are accelerating across many domains and many of the technologies that will enable military action in 2030 are already visible, enabling execution of existing operations or development of entirely new Conops.
The primary determinant of the future battlefield is the ability of the military to reinvent or transform itself to adapt to the environment. True revolutions in military affairs (RMAs) only occur when militaries transform Conops, organizations and cultures to exploit emergent technologies fully. New technologies applied to existing Conops can improve effectiveness; however, new Conops enabled by new technologies can change the very nature of warfare.
The Concept of Operations
Future warfare will be dominated by the control of information. Properly exploited, information produces knowledge--of the environment, the enemy and home forces. Thus, gaining and maintaining information superiority will be an imperative. This will be challenging as adversaries will have access to many of the same capabilities. Even a niche adversary will have significant information ability through exploitation of commercial faculties.
As with other forms of warfare, information warfare will have offensive and defensive elements. Unique to information warfare is the ability to easily and simultaneously conduct operations at the tactical, operational and strategic levels. Information warriors can stage operations at any location where they can access the supporting networks. In the globally connected world of 2030, that will be almost anywhere.
To dominate the future battlefield, the information domain must also be dominated. Multiphenomenological information must be collected, processed into useful knowledge and rapidly disseminated to decision-makers who can utilize it to shape and influence the combat sphere. At the same time, adversaries must be denied this capability. Gaining and maintaining information superiority will require a robust intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) capability and seamless communications with every element of the force.
By 2030, space will be the center of gravity for ISR activities, and these assets will clearly be threatened. Terrestrial, airborne and space ISR assets must be fully integrated to support knowledge creation and they must be protected against physical, electronic and information warfare attacks. The ability to reconstitute their capability rapidly must also be established.
The second major determinant of success on the future battlefield will be the ability to produce decisive effects quickly. Speed of execution requires being able to project influence in all three dimensions on a battlefield rapidly. This influence might consist of a warhead on a target, infusion of ground forces or implanting a computer virus in a key network. Since specific effects are desired, timing, precision and weapons sizing will be critical.
The technologies to enable this type of warfare are also becoming available. Knowledge creation will be aided by: improvements in information processing and storage; intelligent agents and decision-aiding software; digitally reprogrammable communication devices and broadband (including laser) communication links; persistent, survivable unmanned ISR vehicles, responsive, reusable launch vehicles that could deploy micro- or nano-satellites and stealthy interceptors to attack or defend high-value sensor systems.
Technologies that will enable greater speed of execution include: ultra-precise weapons; highly survivable supersonic and hypersonic stand-off weapons; offensive information warfare tools; long-range, unmanned, survivable delivery platforms with large payloads that can provide persistency over the battlefield; long-range transports that can deploy ground forces rapidly; directed-energy weapons that provide speed-of-light closure and more deployable ground forces.
These emergent technologies can be harnessed to create a new way of war--a concept of operations where superior knowledge is exploited with speed of execution inside an adversaries' decision/action cycle. This Conops will exploit the ability to conduct continuous engagement throughout the battlespace, seize and maintain initiative and shape outcome with minimum, precise application of force.
Such a Conops would utilize speed of maneuver and precision strike to mass effects without the need to mass forces. When this speed of movement is coupled with a minimal in-theater logistics footprint, an adversaries' targeting options are minimal and fleeting. The simultaneity of operations across tactical, operational and strategic levels of conflict is designed to paralyze the enemy.
The Battlefield
On the battlefield, this Conops looks dramatically different. There are no defined lines of troops or forward or rear areas. Dispersed, knowledge-enabled entities conduct near-simultaneous, synchronized engagements across the battlespace. Each entity has common, shared battlespace awareness and seamless interoperability with the other systems. This network-enabled force can therefore collaborate to achieve a synchronization of force application and speed of command that maximizes its effect on the battlefield.
Information and air and space superiority are essential to provide the freedom of action necessary to prosecute this type of campaign. Early engagements are likely to occur to protect networks or high-value knowledge-creating assets.
Ground forces are inserted at the appropriate location, achieve their desired effects and are withdrawn quickly. Upon insertion, these forces are supported by a self-forming "task force" of resources. Knowledge and battlespace awareness are provided by the network. Fire support for these ground forces may come from an "arsenal aircraft" overhead, a ship offshore or a remote battery. Joint and coalition operations will require seamless interoperability between the land, sea and aerospace forces. This interoperability demands not only shared information and battlespace awareness but also interdependence in the application of maneuver and precision engagement on the battlefield.
A COMMAND-AND-control and decision-making environment will need to exist to allow commanders to execute dynamic planning and maintain full battlespace awareness at very high levels of operational tempo. All entities will continually report their system health and logistics state. Resupply and other logistics support will be autonomic and largely supported from outside the theater to reduce theater footprint.
Thus, the battles of 2030 will be fought on the ground and at sea as well as in air, space and information networks that support an adversary's way of life. Engagement in all of these domains will be necessary. It is this simultaneous, theater-wide engagement across the tactical, operational and strategic levels that will characterize warfare.
Biography:
George K. Muellner has been senior vice president/general manager of Air Force Systems for the Integrated Defense Systems business unit of the Boeing Co. since July 2002. The sector is responsible for all air and space systems and system-of-systems programs the company is conducting for the U.S. Air Force. Previously, Muellner was president of Phantom Works, Boeing's advanced research and development unit. He joined Boeing in 1998 after serving 31 years in the U.S. Air Force, retiring as a lieutenant general. Muellner's last USAF position was principal deputy for the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Acquisition in Washington.
Illustration
Photo: photograph: USAF Lt. Gen. (ret.) George K. Muellner
Credit: George K. Muellner
x106 Proceedings of the NATO Advanced Research Workshop : Advanced Radiation Sources and Applications
2004
Advanced Radiation Sources and Applications edited by Helmut Wiedemann, Stanford University, Applied Physics Department and SSRL/SLAC, Stanford, CA, U.S.A.
Published in cooperation with NATO Public Diplomacy Division
Proceedings of the NATO Advanced Research Workshop on Advanced Radiation Sources and Applications
Nor-Hamberd, Yerevan, Armenia; August 29-September 2, 2004.
x107 Wall, Robert : Strategic Shift; Services consider adjusting spending plans on bombers and other aircraft programs
2004-01
Aviation Week & Space Technology 160.4 (Jan 26, 2004): 31.
Abstract (summary)
The US military strategy is set to be revamped, with its focus changing from assigning forces and planning combat regionally to a more global approach that would include areas currently neglected. The adjustments are expected to have hardware implications, particularly as the Pentagon starts drafting its Fiscal 2006 budget in the coming months. Other issues are also under scrutiny. Air Force officials, for instance, are trying to determine whether their long-range strike plans should entail developing a new bomber or whether the mission could be accomplished better another way. Along with the broader focus on potential conflict zones, the Pentagon is transitioning to a global sourcing approach that would provide commanders more freedom to choose systems and units they need for a conflict.
Full Text
The U.S. military strategy is set to be revamped, with its focus changing from assigning forces and planning combat regionally to a more global approach that would include areas currently neglected.
The adjustments are expected to have hardware implications, particularly as the Pentagon starts drafting its Fiscal 2006 budget in the coming months. Other issues are also under scrutiny. Air Force officials, for instance, are trying to determine whether their long-range strike plans should entail developing a new bomber or whether the mission could be accomplished better another way.
Spotlighting an "arc of instability" is one of the main changes that planners will focus on, says Rear Adm. Richard W. Hunt, the Joint Staff's deputy director for strategy and policy. Four regions--Southwest Asia, Northeast Asia, the East Asian littorals and Europe--dominate the thinking in the current national security strategy. The "arc of instability" would include Latin and South America and encompass transnational threats not covered in the existing approach.
The plans still need to be completed, Hunt says, but they could already be reflected in the next National Security Strategy, which the White House is required to unveil before mid-February. It would also provide the underpinning to next year's Quadrennial Defense Review. Top military officials are expected to discuss the implications of the changes this week during a meeting of regional four-star combatant commanders.
Along with the broader focus on potential conflict zones, the Pentagon is transitioning to a "global sourcing" approach that would provide commanders more freedom to choose systems and units they need for a conflict. Currently, the military tailors its forces in a region based on a presumed scenario, which is not as flexible, Hunt suggested. The new outlook would reflect a prior Pentagon decision to appoint the Special Operations Command as its lead organization in fighting terrorism. Socom typically takes a more global approach to using its units than the rest of the military.
As part of the "global sourcing" concept, U.S. military representatives in recent months have been reviewing basing requirements, with an eye on closing existing infrastructure that's seen as strategically less useful, for instance in Western Europe, and instead seeking new, perhaps less permanent, operating locations in Eastern Europe and Africa. Negotiations are now underway with potential host countries, which would be followed by site surveys. The realignment will be gradual and take several years, Hunt noted.
In parallel, the Air Force has been reviewing its global strike needs, both near term and into the future. The service was conducting a range of separate studies in this field on a variety of topics, and decided to pool them as part of a long-range strike summit held last month, says Brig. Gen. Stephen Goldfein, USAF's director of operational capability requirements. Concrete recommendations are still being compiled, although industry officials note no major changes loom. Any near-term decisions would likely affect the Fiscal 2006 budget.
For now, the Air Force will focus on enhancing its existing bombers, the B-1Bs, B-2As and B-52Hs, says Gen. Michael Moseley, USAF vice chief of staff. Goldfein noted that the service's bomber spending plan in the coming years will top $3.5 billion.
One of the most politically sensitive questions concerns what course the service will take in the future. Bomber advocates in Congress have urged the Air Force to begin work on a new aircraft, rather than waiting to field a new system until 2037. The Pentagon wants to hold off on a new development project. But more than that, Moseley and Goldfein indicated the service is trying to determine if a new bomber is the way to go. Goldfein said the Air Force is assessing whether the road map developed several years ago, which calls for developing a new bomber, still makes sense, or whether emerging technology offers a different solution.
A broad array of technology alternatives may emerge, he suggested. While being able to penetrate enemy air defenses is seen as critical, a weapon--such as a cruise missile--rather than an aircraft may be able to do that. Hypersonic vehicles, directed-energy weapons or an "arsenal vehicle"--a large, loitering aircraft that could launch weapons--could be options, Goldfein argued.
But many of the more far-flung ideas already appear to be encountering skepticism at senior service levels. Moseley rejects pressure being put on the Air Force to more aggressively pursue development of a hypersonic exoatmospheric aircraft. Even if funding for the technology were boosted, Moseley doesn't believe it could be accelerated substantially. But he also suggested that firing long-range missiles isn't always an option because they take too long to reach a fleeting target.
On a broader scale, the Air Force also is reviewing how much airframe life is left in its bombers and other aircraft, Goldfein said. The move appears to be driven, in part, by a drastic change in KC-135 airframe life estimates. Several years ago, USAF projected the tanker could be operated many more years. But more recently, as part of the debate about obtaining new KC-767 tankers, it argued that the KC-135s are in worse shape than thought.
The Navy is reviewing some of its spending plans, too. It has assembled a task force to review all of its sensor programs and determine where to spend money in the realm of airborne surveillance and intelligence collection, says Capt. Joseph F. Kilkenny, who oversees the Navy's aircraft carrier, strike and expeditionary aviation programs. Moreover, a time-critical strike task force is evaluating where the service could spend a little money to greatly enhance its ability to attack fleeting targets.
Kilkenny also is championing an effort to better integrate air-to-ground programs across the services, which could lead to more joint programs. Although the Navy and Air Force have often pursued different paths in this arena--most recently with a USAF decision to drop out of the Navy-led JSOW-B antiarmor glide bomb program in favor of an extended-range version of its own Wind-Corrected Munitions Dispenser--Goldfein says the services would be more collaborative on future munition efforts. Only in cases of a unique need, such as a huge weapon for its bombers, would the Air Force pursue an independent road, he maintains.
Illustration
Photo: photograph: As part of its long-range strike review, USAF planners are trying to resolve what upgrades to make to their B-1Bs and other bombers to keep them operationally viable.
Credit: Robert Wall
x108 Scott, William B : Army 'Ray Guns';
2004-02
Aviation Week & Space Technology 160.8 (Feb 23, 2004): 76.
Full Text
Humvee-mounted tactical lasers designed to shield ground troops from air attacks
Recent advancements in solid-state, high-energy pulsed lasers that dissipate heat rapidly will enable the deployment of mobile directed-energy weapon systems that heretofore have been limited to science fiction. When fielded, they are expected to revolutionize the battlefield, solving real-world tactical problems that range from small-unit air defense to clearing land mines.
A government-industry team comprising the U.S. Army, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) and several commercial companies is progressing rapidly toward demonstrating a 100-kw. solid-state heat-capacity laser (SSHCL) mounted on a hybrid gasoline-electric-powered Army Humvee. Air Force-funded researchers are competing with the Army/LLNL-led team to demonstrate a 25-kw.-class solid-state laser system by 2005. Last year, Army/LLNL researchers set a record for average power when a diode-pumped laser produced more than 16 kw. That unit is being upgraded, and is expected to exceed 25 kw. this spring (AW&ST Jan. 12, p. 43).
In 2002, LLNL and its industrial partners demonstrated a refrigerator-size, flashlamp-pumped SSHCL that produced a high-quality 13,000-watt beam with 600-joule output pulses. A 6-sec. shot bored a 1-cm.-dia. hole through a 2-cm.-thick plate of steel. Until now, only large gas and chemical lasers could deliver that sort of fire power--but they aren't particularly mobile. For example, the chemical oxygen iodine laser flown on the Air Force's Airborne Laser system and designed to shoot-down theater ballistic missiles, consumes most of a Boeing 747 freighter's interior (AW&ST Jan. 5, p. 29).
Today's nascent mobile, high-power SSHCLs offer soldiers unprecedented protection from airborne and air-delivered threats. For centuries, when a cannon, artillery or mortar shell was fired at an individual, that soldier had one option--find a hole or other cover and hope the munition landed somewhere else. The advent of air-to-ground rockets, missiles and bombs delivered from aircraft made the ground-pounder even more vulnerable. Only when air superiority over a battle zone was established by the air force could ground soldiers feel relatively safe from bombing, but artillery, surface-to-surface rockets and tactical missiles still sent them diving for a hole. Consequently, SSHCL-type laser systems will finally answer many a foxhole prayer by erecting an invisible shield over that battlefield and blasting incoming munitions of all types.
When integrated with precision beam-control and active target acquisition systems, the SSHCL is expected to lock-on, track and destroy rockets, tactical missiles, mortar and artillery shells, and unmanned aerial vehicle threats. However, overall system response times probably won't be fast enough to defend troops against the rocket-propelled grenades that now plague U.S. and coalition forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to Lloyd A. Hackel, program leader for LLNL's laser science and technology unit.
A key "breakthrough" aspect of SSHCLs is the ability to produce high-energy pulses in a relatively small, mobile system. Hackel said fitting a practical solid-state laser weapon on a Humvee is definitely feasible. If researchers achieve their 100-kw. goal by 2007, as expected, solid-state lasers will become valuable air defense weapons that can travel with ground forces.
To reach those power levels, flashlamp-pumped lasers in an SSHCL system will be replaced with new diode-pumped solid-state lasers. Light-producing diode array packages, though, experience rapid heat buildup when the laser is fired. An effective heat-control technique to increase the frequency of shots is to cycle a stack of crystalline slabs between a cooler and the laser weapon. A firing-heated slab is slid out of the laser and replaced with a slab pre-cooled by helium.
The same Humvee-mounted SSHCL weapons that protect troops from incoming rockets, artillery and missiles also will be able to clear land mines, Hackel said. Mines located by a ground-penetrating radar or other sensor can either be detonated or disabled by the laser system.
Whether intercepting a tactical missile or detonating a land mine, the SSHCL uses the same kill mechanism--imparting huge amounts of energy to a small area, which heats an explosive to its ignition point or disrupts firing-train components. That requires a few seconds of "dwell time"--keeping the laser focused on a target--which dictates precise beam control and target-tracking systems.
Army officers predict solid-state directed-energy weapons will bring a number of subtle benefits beyond air defense and mine-clearing, such as:
*Quick reaction. Transportable on a C-130, Humvee-mounted laser systems will be ready for action when they roll off an aircraft's loading ramp.
*Rapid fire rates. High-energy lithium-ion batteries charged by the hybrid Humvee's generator will provide considerable power for repeated laser shots.
*Stealthy operation. Solid-state laser weapons are quiet, produce no visible smoke and no detectable effluents, according to lab officials.
*Cost-effectiveness. The primary logistics need is fuel for the Humvee, which provides power to its laser. The number of available shots--the SSHCL's "ammunition magazine"--is dictated by fuel tank capacity. About 1 liter (0.26 gal.) of fuel is consumed per laser shot.
Considerable development is still required before SSHCL systems become viable weapons. Lab researchers admit that integration of many different components into a compact, minimum-weight, mobile system is "a critical engineering challenge," but insist the pace of development is dictated by funding. "We could build [a 100-kw. laser] sooner, if we had the money to buy more arrays and crystals," one said.
Illustration
Caption: illustration: Equipped with a lethal, high-average-power, solid-state laser weapon system, a single Army Humvee will provide a short-range air defense capability to counter missiles, rockets and artillery (below).; illustration: Computational models and experiments are demonstrating the effectiveness of pulsed solid-state lasers against antitank missile fuses (right).
Credit: Livermore, Calif.
x109 Kelly, Michael F : Powering the Future: Advances in Propulsion Technologies Provide a Capability Road Map for War-Fighter Operations
2004-03
Powering the Future: Advances in Propulsion Technologies Provide a Capability Road Map for War-Fighter Operations
Kelly, Michael F
Air & Space Power Journal; Spring 2004; 18, 1; ProQuest Science Journals
pg. 51
Already, scientists and engineers can imagine exciting possible solutions as current technology matures -- from superconducting power generation that enables high-power, directed-energy weapons to supersonic and hypersonic engines that can power long-range strike aircraft and advanced rocket propulsion and air-breating hypersonic engines to enable easy access to space. Work is also well underway developing electric-, solar-, laser-, and plasma-propulsion systems for mini- and microsatellites of the future.
...
The directorate's work in advanced electrical power and thermal management technologies is also enabling concepts like high-power laser weapons on fighter aircraft, high-power microwave weapons for attacking electronics, and nonlethal millimeter wave technologies that use electromagnetic energy to repel advancing adversaries. Recent advancements have been made in serveral areas addressing the challenges of supporting these futuristic weapons.18
One of the most critical poroblems facing the future implementation of these directed-energy weapon (DEW) systems is adequate electrical power. Adding DEWs to the war-fighter's arsenal would provide the Air Force with a significiant transformational capability. Scientists and engineers are aggressively working to mature the technologies needed to package and deliver multimegawatts of power in the confined space of a fighter aircraft or space platform. They are developing a new class of electrical components that operate at higher temperatures, such as switches and capacitors, along with super-conductivity and thermal-management technologies. All have shown tremendous progress in recent years. ... These improvements are crucial for airborne applications of DEW because they offer considerable savings in system weight, improved electrical performance, and the ability to withstand high-temperature operating environments.
The next-generation high-temperature superconducting wire, dubbed YBCO for its molecular configuration of yttrium, barium, and copper oxide, is another key DEW-enabling technology. By using YBCO conductor technology, high-speed and high-temperature superconducting generators can produce megawatts of electrical power while weighing up to 80 percent less than traditional iron-core generators.
Conceptually, one- to five-megawatt power generators would allow the electrical DEW to operate as long as jet fuel is available to turn the turbine engines, thereby providing a "deep ammunition magazine." Aerial refueling would elminate the requirment to land and rearm the aircraft in a conventional sense. In contrast, the Airborne Laser (ABL) program's platform uses a chemcially fueled laser to shoot down ballistic missiles... When all chemical reactants are expended, the aircraft must return to base for reloading.19
17 Michael Kelly, "Power Technologies Create Revolution," Leading Edge Magazine, January 2003, 12, https://www.afmc-mil.wpafb.af.mil/organizations/HQ-AFMPC/PA/leading_edge/archvies/2003/Jan/JanWeb.pdf
18 Michael Kelly, "Powering Transformation: Path to Tactical Directed-Energy Weapons Now Reality Thanks to New Power Technologies," Leading Edge Magazine, August 2003, 10, https://www.afmc-mil.wpafb.af.mil/organizations/HQ-AFMC/PA/leading_edge/archives/2003/Aug/Augweb03.pdf
19 Ibid
x110 Kelly, Michael F. : Powering the Future: Advances in Propulsion Technologies Provide a Capability Road Map for War-Fighter Operations
2004-03
Air & Space Power Journal 18.1 (Spring 2004): 51-59.
Abstract (summary)
Gen Hap Arnold's commitment to "preeminence in research," the belief that technology superiority leads to air and space superiority, remains the hallmark of Air Force culture. Air Force success in providing the nation with a rapid air and space response capability requires researchers to continue to provide advancements in a number of technologies. Propulsion and power solutions for aircraft, weapons, and space systems are especially important technologies and are recognized as critical enablers, also making the test facilities that support the research and development of those revolutionary and transformational technologies critical to our progress. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]
Full text
Headnote
Editorial Abstract:Gen Hap Arnold's commitment to "preeminence in research," the belief that technology superiority leads to air and space superiority, remains the hallmark of Air Force culture. Air Force success in providing the nation with a rapid air and space response capability requires researchers to continue to provide advancements in a number of technologies. Propulsion and power solutions for aircraft, weapons, and space systems are especially important technologies and are recognized as critical enablers, also making the test facilities that support the research and development of those revolutionary and transformational technologies critical to our progress.
GEN HENRY H. "Hap" Arnold, architect of American airpower, said it plainly and persuasively nearly six decades ago, "The first essential of air power is preeminence in research." That simple, yet prescient statement in the early, heady days of flight revealed Arnold's vision for aeronautical research and development that went on to profoundly shape the future Air Force.1 By combining his vision, political savvy, piloting skills, and engineering knowledge, Arnold was able to forge a mission and place for the US Air Force. As one of the country's first to earn his military aviator wings from the Wright brothers, he was especially interested in the development of sophisticated air and space technology that could give the United States an edge in achieving air superiority. Arnold went on to foster the development of such transformational innovations as jet aircraft, rocketry, and supersonic flight.2
In many ways Arnold institutionalized a commitment to research that remains evident today as the Air Force upholds a position of technological leadership-leadership that delivers a steady infusion of new technology to war fighters through high-risk, high-payoff research in the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL). More importantly, his vision of building technological superiority laid the foundation for our capacity to achieve today's Air Force distinctive capabilities-air and space superiority, information superiority, global attack, precision engagement, rapid global mobility, and agile combat support. Arnold's commitment to technology superiority remains the hallmark of Air Force culture.
For over 85 years, Propulsion Directorate scientists, engineers, support personnel, and contractors have been answering Arnold's call for world-class research that puts capabilities into the hands of Air Force war fighters to help them dominate air and space-now and in the future. Its 450 ongoing programs, over 1,000 people, and an annual budget of more than $300 million not only have provided a complete spectrum of advanced propulsion technologies for aircraft, rockets, and spacecraft but also have conducted leading-edge research and development in air and space fuels, propellants, and power systems.3 Their inventions have expanded the envelope of propulsion technologies and pushed air and space vehicles higher, faster, and farther-even into space-than Orville and Wilbur Wright ever could have imagined. Today, those technologies are flying in air and space on more than 130 military and commercial systems, including the F/A-22 Raptor, the newly christened F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF), and the twin Mars rovers-Spirit and Opportunity, which successfully landed and began their explorations on the red planet in January 2004.4 This article discusses mainly the directorate's efforts and their actual and potential impacts-efforts that have been accomplished, are in progress, and are planned for the future.
Technological advancements in the early days of flight brought a whole new set of challenges, and history books confirm the key role that propulsion technologies played in meeting those challenges and in the nation's many air and space accomplishments. The late Melvin Kranzberg, professor of history at case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, said the technical innovation in the Wright brothers' airplane quickly necessitated additional technical advances to make it more effective.5 Those advances in engines, cooling systems, propellers, power systems, and fuel were closely linked to the Power Plant Section at McCook Field in Dayton, Ohio-first home to the Army Air Corps's aircraft-engineering functions and great-grandfather to today's Propulsion Directorate. The innovations in propulsion and power that were inspired by the Wright brothers and accomplished through the years at McCook Field, Wright Field, and later, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, and Edwards Air Force Base, California, dramatically changed the course of aviation and its applications.
In the air and space age, propulsion research and development capabilities will continue to be of even greater and more urgent importance. F. Whitten Peters, former secretary of the Air Force and now vice-chairman of the Commission on the Future of the US Aerospace Industry, agreed with the judgment reached by that commission in 2002 that propulsion is the crucial enabler to the nation's future air and space capabilities. The commission reached that conclusion after meeting with over 100 companies, government organizations, and interest groups, having heard from more than 60 witnesses and spoken with the government and industry representatives from seven foreign countries.6
With an eye on maintaining and strengthening future capabilities, the nation must build a rapid air and space response force enabling robust, distributed military operations across the service's core competencies.7 As has been true in past endeavors, the long-term challenge in building a rapid air and space response capability will be developing the technologies that enable quick reaction to war-fighter operations or crises wherever needed, much like those Arnold envisioned in the early days of flight.
Meeting and overcoming this challenge will require significant innovation. Already, scientists and engineers can imagine exciting possible solutions as current technology matures-from superconducting power generation that enables high-power, directed-energy weapons to supersonic and hypersonic engines that can power long-range strike aircraft and advanced rocket propulsion and air-breathing hypersonic engines to enable easy access to space. Work is also well under way developing electric-, solar-, laser-, and plasma-propulsion systems for mini- and microsatellites of the future.
While many of these technologies may seem like science fiction, so too were the jet engine, the airplane, and the rocket engine only 100 years ago. Fifty years from now, some of these new technologies may still seem like science fiction, but others will have moved into the realm of the possible. The task at hand for today's scientists and engineers is to perform research that identifies those breakthrough technologies and moves them from science fiction to science fact.8
Propulsion and Power for Aircraft
If the Air Force is to succeed in providing the nation with a rapid air and space response capability, researchers must provide a number of technologies including a focus on propulsion and power solutions for aircraft, weapons, and space systems.9 Although it is important to recognize propulsion as a critical enabler, so too are the test facilities that support the research and development of these revolutionary and transformational technologies.
Revolutionary Propulsion and Power for Aircraft
Propulsion researchers are already testing one of the most promising technologies supporting this capability: a supersonic combustion ramjet, or scramjet, engine that uses conventional jet fuels to reach hypersonic speeds-speeds over Mach 5. With technology of this type the Air Force could deliver a useful payload anywhere on Earth in a few hours, providing a force tailored to accomplish national objectives rapidly anywhere on the world's surface and in the near-Earth air and space domain.
This new scramjet technology has the potential to power future hypersonic vehicles, such as cruise missiles and long-range strike and reconnaissance aircraft, at speeds up to eight times the speed of sound. While today's aircraft and missiles only fly up to the Mach 3 range, new hypersonic aircraft and weapons would offer a faster response to war fighters, giving them the ability to take out time-critical targets within a few hours, if not minutes.
Dubbed "HyTech," for hypersonic technology, the program got its start in 1995 in the wake of the cancelled National Aero-Space Plane program-an effort aimed at developing a hydrogen-fueled, scramjet-powered, single-stage-to-orbit vehicle capable of aircraftlike horizontal takeoffs and landings. In contrast, the Air Force's version of the scramjet is designed to run on JP-7 fuel, a more logistically supportable fuel than hydrogen. While the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) continues to pursue the development of a hydrogen-fueled system with its "Hyper-X" program, the Air Force, by using hydrocarbon fuels like JP-7 instead of hydrogen, hopes to one day deploy these systems anywhere, anytime, and anyplace.
Wind-tunnel tests on the engine, completed in June 2003, successfully demonstrated the operability, performance, and structural durability of the scramjet system. Building on more than 2,000 tests from components through an integrated, flight-weight engine, the directorate's scientists and engineers, as well as contractors from Pratt and Whitney and the United Technology Resource Center, have demonstrated that the engine works, and they are excited about extending this technology to systems that will give war fighters a distinct advantage over future enemies. With 25 runs at Mach 4.5 and Mach 6.5, the flight-weight engine reliably produced significant net positive thrust, which is important because it demonstrates the ability to efficiently burn fuel and accelerate a vehicle at these speeds. The thermal characteristics and structural durability of the engine were also validated at both speeds.
Another propulsion team is exploring the pulsed detonation engine, or PDE-a new type of engine which may well be the first of its type to power an aircraft in flight. For years, propulsion researchers around the world have searched for a better, more efficient way to increase speed and improve the performance of aircraft. They believe that the PDE may one day fill that critical gap in America's ability to reach simple, low-cost, high-speed flight. Today, the PDE these researchers have developed creates thrust by using a series of controlled explosions of fuel and air in detonation tubes that look like long exhaust pipes. By designing a process in which the detonations of the fuel and air mixture are controlled, researchers were able to develop sufficient thrust to power future aircraft. The propulsion team is well on its way to proving the PDE concept as an inexpensive, simply constructed, and more efficient engine for tomorrow's war fighters. In fact, the PDE could bring a new level of efficiency and thrust capability to propulsion systems in the Mach 2 to Mach 4 range by improving fuel economy, demonstrating high thrust-to-weight ratios, and simplifying the engine's mechanical structure.
Evolutionary Propulsion and Power for Aircraft
The directorate is also pursuing improvements in more traditional turbine engine technologies to improve performance and reliability while reducing sustainment costs. Turbine engine research, development, acquisition, and sustainment are major Department of Defense (DOD) businesses with a collective annual investment of more than $5.7 billion, excluding fuel cost. Sustainment consumes 62 percent of that budget-more than $3.5 billion-which is why the Air Force's science and technology leaders place such great emphasis on reducing those costs.10 Keeping sustainment expenses in check is one of the goals of the air-breathing propulsion technology efforts in progress today, as well as those currently in the planning phases.
The Army, Navy, Air Force, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), NASA, and major US engine manufacturers have been jointly developing and demonstrating cutting-edge propulsion technologies for over a decade under the Integrated High Performance Turbine Engine Technology (IHPTET) program. That program has the goal of doubling propulsion-system capability and reducing acquisition and maintenance costs 35 percent by 2005. IHPTET technologies not only have successfully transitioned into many of the Air Force's legacy propulsion systems powering today's frontline military aircraft, but also are providing the enabling technologies for a wide range of new systems such as the JfSF.11
Nearly every technology developed under the IHPTET program can, in some way, transition to the commercial sector to improve the performance, reliability, life, and operational cost characteristics of commercial turbine engines-in aircraft, marine, and industrial applications. These contributions help sustain the positive balance of air and space trade and maintain US market share in today's highly competitive, global economy. Without IHPTET program success, aggressive propulsion-technology development programs sponsored by world competitors would quickly challenge the US military and economic advantage in turbine propulsion.12
Recent IHPTET successes are providing technologies that allow critical modernization of the F100, F110, and F404 families of engines-the backbone of Air Force frontline aircraft. Also, the knowledge necessary to fix problems currently encountered in the engines of the Air Force, Navy, and Army operational fleets is available because of IHPTET achievements. For example, IHPTET provided the key fan technology for the F118 engine powering the B-2 and demonstrated viability of the majority of technologies chosen for the F119 engine in the F/A-22. IHPTET is also the critical base for all JSF propulsion concepts and other new engines, such as the F414 powering the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet.13 As a result of these recent accomplishments, turbofan and turbojet designs now being developed can achieve a 40 percent increase in thrust-to-weight and a 20 percent reduction in fuel burn over baseline engines; turboprop and turboshaft engines can attain similar results with a 40 percent gain in horsepower-to-weight and a 20 percent improvement in specific fuel consumption; and air-breathing missile engines can have a 35 percent increase in thrust-to-airflow, burn 20 percent less fuel, and cost 30 percent less.
The performance improvements demonstrated in IHPTET efforts are also being traded to provide increased component lives or cost reductions in fielded systems. The third-phase goal of gaining a 100 percent increase in thrust-to-weight capability will enable specific system payoffs such as sustained Mach 3+ in an F-15-sized aircraft; greater range and payload in an F-18-sized, short takeoff and vertical landing (STOVL) aircraft; a 100 percent range and payload increase in a CH-47-sized helicopter; and intercontinental range in an air launched cruise missile (ALCM) sized missile.14
Next-Generation Turbines
Building on the IHPTET's successes, the Versatile Affordable Advanced Turbine Engine (VAATE) program is focused on achieving a tenfold improvement in turbine engine affordability by the year 2017 through a joint DOD, NASA, Department of Energy, and air and space industry effort. In parallel with increases in turbine-engine capability, the VAATE program places major emphasis on research and development, production, and maintenance costs. Its engines will contain numerous technology innovations, providing the war fighter the most versatile and affordable propulsion for legacy (F-16, F-15, and B-1), pipeline (F/A-22, F-35, unmanned combat aerial vehicle [UCAV]), and future military systems (long-range strike aircraft, global-reach transport, and supersonic UCAVs).15
For the future, VAATE technologies will assure further dramatic improvements in turbine-engine affordability, not only for military applications such as aircraft, rotorcraft, missiles, and unmanned air vehicles (UAV), but also for America's domestic applications. VAATE attributes include an integrated inlet system; a low-emission combustion system; long-life, high-temperature turbines; high-temperature bearings and lubricants; and an automatic, adaptive-engine health-management system.
The VAATE program is now an approved DOD technology objective and recently awarded its first major procurement activity to multiple defense contractors for approximately $350 million. Contracts are focused on material systems, advanced-fuel technology, and other system technologies required to enable a supersonic, long-range strike capability.16
Electrical Power for Aircraft
A revolutionary transformation in aircraft electrical-power technologies that promises greater aircraft reliability and a significantly smaller logistical tail to support tomorrow's air and space force is under way. The More Electric Aircraft (MEA) program is a reality that has been demonstrated in the newly christened F-35 JSF. By teaming with sister services, universities, and air and space industry partners, the directorate's power-technology researchers have translated three decades of technological progress into stunning advances that promise greater war-fighter capability and a 20 percent reduction of aerospace ground equipment (AGE).
The fundamental transformation uses electrical power to drive aircraft subsystems currently powered by hydraulic, pneumatic, or mechanical means. It provides aircraft designers with more options to power gear-boxes, hydraulic pumps, electrical generators, flight-control actuators, and a host of other aircraft subsystems.17 New concepts like electric environmental control and electric fuel pumps, along with magnetic bearings for generators and eventually "more electric" turbine engines, are in the works. They promise dramatic simplifications in aircraft system design, while improving reliability and maintainability in the years to come.
The MEA effort also promises to reduce the bulky and heavy AGE required at home and downrange during deployments and contingencies. Currently, the AGE that supports 24 F-16 Falcons includes electric generators, hydrazine servicing carts, air conditioners, high-pressure air carts, and hydraulic-fluid "mules"; 16 C-141 Starlifters are required for its transport. There could be a reduction of up to 20 percent in the size and weight of equipment required to support MEA units; the freed airlift could be used to transport other war-fighting assets.
Other Propulsion and Power Applications
To succeed in providing the full spectrum of rapid air and space response, Air Force researchers must provide a number of technologies that include a focus on propulsion and power solutions for weapons and space systems. As with other efforts, the directorate is collaborating with other government agencies, industry, and academia to develop, demonstrate, and transition propulsion and power technologies for use in these applications. Those efforts have the potential for evolutionary and revolutionary developments in a variety of air-breathing weapons, hypersonic and supersonic cruise missiles, airborne directed-energy weapons, rocket-powered missile systems, intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM), space launch, tactical missiles, and spacecraft propulsion.
Propulsion and Power for Weapons
The most strenuous near-term weapons application is for a scramjet-powered, fast-reaction, long-range, air-to-ground missile cruising at greater than Mach 6-more than 4,500 mph. That missile could be launched from a bomber or fighter, and its rocket booster would accelerate it to speeds of about Mach 4 where its scramjet would start and continue its acceleration to a cruising speed above Mach 6. Although its maximum flight duration is about 10 minutes, it flies seven times faster than a conventional cruise weapon to quickly cover hundreds of miles to reach time-critical targets. A single shooter employing this hypersonic weapon can cover 49 times the area reachable with a conventional cruise weapon.
In the supersonic realm of weaponry, the VAATE program discussed earlier will enable a supersonic, long-range, modular cruise missile with a Mach 3.5+ cruise capability. This advanced weapon will also provide a rapid response time to target, coupled with a flexible mission profile, by using affordable, reliable, and high-performance turbine engines.
The directorate's work in advanced electrical power and thermal management technologies is also enabling concepts like high-power laser weapons on fighter aircraft, high-power microwave weapons for attacking electronics, and nonlethal millimeter wave technologies that use electromagnetic energy to repel advancing adversaries. Recent advancements have been made in several areas addressing the challenges of supporting these futuristic weapons.18
One of the most critical problems facing the future implementation of these directed-energy weapon (DEW) systems is adequate electrical power. Adding DEWs to the war-fighter's arsenal would provide the Air Force with a significant transformational capability. Scientists and engineers are aggressively working to mature the technologies needed to package and deliver multimegawatts of power in the confined space of a fighter aircraft or space platform. They are developing a new class of electrical components that operate at higher temperatures, such as switches and capacitors, along with superconductivity and thermal-management technologies. All have shown tremendous progress in recent years. For example, those involved in the developmental testing of diamond-like carbon capacitors say their progress is the most significant in decades. In fact, directorate researchers have enabled the production of capacitors with improved energy density and temperature capabilities that are more than two times better than today's state-of-the-art capacitors. These improvements are crucial for airborne applications of DEW because they offer considerable savings in system weight, improved electrical performance, and the ability to withstand high-temperature operating environments.
The next-generation high-temperature superconducting wire, dubbed YBCO for its molecular configuration of yttrium, barium, and copper oxide, is another key DEW-enabling technology. By using YBCO conductor technology, high-speed and high-temperature superconducting generators can produce megawatts of electrical power while weighing up to 80 percent less than traditional iron-core generators.
Conceptually, one- to five-megawatt power generators would allow the electrical DEW to operate as long as jet fuel is available to turn the turbine engines, thereby providing a "deep ammunition magazine." Aerial refueling would eliminate the requirement to land and rearm the aircraft in a conventional sense. In contrast, the Airborne Laser (ABL) program's platform uses a chemically fueled laser to shoot down ballistic missiles while they are still over an enemy's own territory. When all chemical reactants are expended, the aircraft must return to base for reloading.19
Propulsion and Power for Missiles
The ICBM is a more traditional weapon with propulsion and power requirements. Although many thought the end of the Cold War would mean the end of the ICBM with its nuclear warheads, this has not been the case. The proliferation of both nuclear and nonnuclear weapons of mass destruction (WMD) into nations and nonstate groups, including terrorists, presents serious challenges to the United States that necessitate the need for a continuednuclear force. However, this nuclear force must have global reach and the capability to be tailored to fit the target's unique requirements. Directorate scientists and engineers, having been involved in every ICBM development since the Atlas and Thor, foresaw this need and continued to pursue improvements in solid-rocket propulsion for next-generation ballistic and tactical missiles. Their $68 million missile research investments gave the Peacekeeper the ability to carry more than twice the payload of the Minuteman III, while fitting within the same silo, and saved the Peacekeeper program over $22 billion, a 32,000:1 return on research investment. Researchers continue to make important improvements in ICBM technologies, allowing the next ICBM to greatly exceed the range of the current Minuteman III.20
Propulsion and Power for Space
Scientists and engineers are also focused on the heavens with such collaborative efforts as the Integrated High Payoff Rocket Propulsion Technology (IHPRPT) program, a national initiative to improve and double capabilities across the broad spectrum of our nation's rocket propulsion technology by 2010.21 This program addresses propulsion needs across space launch, ICBMs, tactical missiles, and spacecraft propulsion. It is also one of the few times since the development of the space shuttle main engine more than 30 years ago when the Air Force and NASA are jointly developing reusable rocket-engine boost technology for future DOD and NASA launch vehicles.
IHPRPT teams with industry and focuses their research and development efforts in such areas as new propellants that break through the performance barrier of traditional chemical propellants. Their research and development (R&D) also includes new and more affordable propulsion subsystems for solid rocket motors and liquid-rocket engines; and electric propulsion for satellites; laser propulsion; and solar propulsion for orbit transfer.22
A joint Air Force and NASA rocket-engine program called the Integrated Powerhead Demonstrator (IPD) will demonstrate new designs and techniques for application in future liquid-rocket engines to enhance performance and save weight and costs. The program is a combination of research efforts and validation testing to provide new, more efficient portions of the rocket engine that precondition and pump liquid fuels and oxidizers into the main engine. The technology developed under the IPD program will provide the world's first hydrogen-fueled rocket engine with oxygen-rich staged combustion. The IPD test program expects to place a fully integrated engine on the NASA Stennis teststand facilities for testing in 2004.23
While rocket engines have been around for decades, continued research like that being conducted through the IPD test program will lead to a very high return on this investment since propulsion remains a significant percentage of any vehicle's weight and cost. For instance, in space launch vehicles, propulsion accounts for 70 to 90 percent of the vehicle weight and 40 to 60 percent of the system costs. Satellite propulsion represents 50 to 70 percent of the weight and 25 to 40 percent of the costs. Also, a satellite's life span is limited to the lesser of either power or propulsion life, which is why researchers strive to develop smaller, lighter, more powerful, and more affordable propulsion and power systems to improve the capabilities in tomorrow's space vehicles.24
These new launch vehicles could eventually meet an on-demand space-surge capability. It stands that if the Air Force could quickly provide joint force commanders with whatever space assets are required, then the Air Force could strategically respond to situations and minimize the need for ultrahigh-resolution worldwide intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance assets in predictable orbits. Propulsion researchers are leading the way in arming the country's joint force commanders with the ability to respond rapidly in any given situation by supplying space assets in near real time. This can be accomplished by either launching and maneuvering new assets into place or by moving existing space platforms or weapons to wherever they are required within several hours.25
Part of the HyTech program discussed earlier includes an effort to build a durable engine that provides affordable, reusable, on-demand space-access systems. The joint Air Force-NASA X43C program will demonstrate key technologies supporting this application. Conceivably, a two-stage-to-orbit vehicle could take off like a conventional aircraft powered by an advanced turbine engine like those being developed under VAATE and then reach Earth's upper atmosphere by combined scramjet-rocket power to put a payload into space. This concept would provide both ground basing and orbit flexibility at only half the cost of today's approaches, thereby giving the Air Force more affordable access to space.
The nation currently has no truly reusable rocket engines for space launch. The space shuttle engines, based on research from the 1960s, are routinely pulled for maintenance and service after nearly every flight. If we are to achieve operationally responsive space lift by using truly reusable launch vehicles, the nation needs engines that can last a minimum of 50 flights between overhauls. So, while pursuing long-term, high-risk, high-payoff efforts like hypersonic engines for space access, researchers are also pursuing significant advances in liquid-rocket engines. Current and planned programs are developing the materials, components, fuels, and other technologies to enable truly reusable launch vehicles. In the future, hypersonics and rockets will come together in combined cycle engines providing further improvements in performance, cost, and responsiveness. Within 20 years, the nation will see the Wright brothers' vision being taken into space by operationally responsive launch vehicles, which will change the face of battle for many years to come.26
In the nearer term, the Air Force has an increased requirement for propulsive microsatellites to support a range of future specialized missions. In conjunction with an operationally responsive space-lift capability, microsatellites could be used to rapidly reconstitute space assets that have failed, ensuring the war fighter uninterrupted service. Individual microsatellites can approach and inspect damaged satellites so the operator can then deploy specialized microsatellites to enact repairs, upgrade electronics, or refill propellant tanks.
Scientists have invented the micropulsed plasma thruster, or microPPT. This miniaturized propulsion system weighs about 100 grams and provides precise impulse bits in the 10-micronewton range. These impulse bits provide attitude control on present 100-kilogram (kg) small satellites and station keeping, as well as primary propulsion on next-generation 25 kg microsatellites. The primary attractive features are the use of a solid, inert propellant (Teflon); expected high, specific impulse when combined with electromagnetic acceleration; and a simple, lightweight design based largely on commercial, flight-qualified electronic components. A comparatively simple version of the microPPT is undergoing flight engineering and qualification for demonstration aboard the US Air Force Academy Falcon-Sat III satellite scheduled to launch in 2006. Five microPPTs are manifested on the flight to increase attitude control for the vehicle.27
Conclusion
The intent in facing these technology challenges head-on is to seek out both linear and nonlinear solutions that provide significantly increased capabilities to America's war fighters. The linear challenges will be met with science and technology efforts maturing before 2020, which are continuations of today's current technology. These efforts offer lower risk and modest payoff, and they include reusable boost and orbit-transfer vehicles, solid and hybrid expendable launch vehicles, and satellite propulsion. The service's nonlinear challenges are efforts maturing after 2020 that are new technology breakthroughs involving higher risk but very high payoff. These include space ramjets, magnetohydrodynamics-enhanced propulsion, and directed-energy launches.28
While these technology developments could lead to many strategic and force-structure implications, the Propulsion Directorate's goal remains focused on developing new propulsion and power technologies that support the Air Force vision of rapid air and space response. That focus is documented in a mutually supportive and coherent plan for air, space, and energy technologies that covers the next 20 to 50 years.
Footnote
Notes
1. C. V. Glines, "Book review of Hap Arnold and the Evolution of American Air Power by Dik Man Daso," Aviation History Magazine, http://www.historybookworld.com/ reviews/hbwevolutionofamericanairpower.html.
2. Pamela Feltus, "Henry 'Hap' Arnold," History of Flight Essays, US Centennial of Flight Web site, http:// www.centennialofflight.gov/essay/Air_Power/Hap_ Arnold/AP16.htm.
3. Kristen Schario, "Powering the Future," Technology Horizons Magazine (PR-01-08), December 2001, http:// www.afrlhorizons.com/Briefs/Dec01/PR0108.html.
4. Ibid.
5. Melvin Kranzberg and Carroll W. Pursell Jr., eds., Technology in Western Civilization: Technology in the Twentieth Century (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993).
6. F. Whitten Peters (keynote address, 2002 Turbine Engine Technology Symposium, Dayton, OH, September 9, 2002).
7. Dr. Alan Garscadden and Michael Kelly, "Rapid Aerospace Response: Technological Capabilities Can Provide a Roadmap for War-Fighter Operations," Technical Horizons Magazine, December 2003, http://www.afrl horizons.com/Briefs/Dec03/PR0305.html.
8. Ibid.
9. Ibid.
10. IHPTET brochure, http://www.pr.afrl.af.mil/ divisions/prt/ihptet/ihptet_brochure.pdf.
11. Peters.
12. S. Michael Gahn and Robert W. Morris Jr., eds., "Integrated High Performance Turbine Engine Technology (IHPTET) Program Brochure," 2002, http://www. pr.afrl.af.mil/divisions/prt/ihptet/ihptet_brochure.pdf.
13. Ibid.
14. Ibid.
15. IHPTET brochure.
16. Ibid.
17. Michael Kelly, "Power Technologies Create Revolution," Leading Edge Magazine, January 2003, 12, https:// www/afmc-mil.wpafb.af.mil/organizations/HQ-AFMPC/ PA/leading_edge/archives/2003/Jan/JanWeb.pdf.
18. Michael Kelly, "Powering Transformation: Path to Tactical Directed-Energy Weapons Now Reality Thanks to New Power Technologies," Leading Edge Magazine, August 2003, 10, https://www.afmc-mil.wpafb.af.mil/organizations /HQ-AFMC/PA/leading_edge/archives/2003/Aug/ Augweb03.pdf.
19. Ibid.
20. John Remen, Air Force Research Laboratory Propulsion Directorate, Space & Missile Propulsion Division's strategic development manager, interview by the author, September 2003.
21. Schario, "Powering the Future."
22. "Integrated High Payoff Rocket Propulsion Technology (IHPRPT) Program Background," http://www.pr. afrl.af.mil/technology/IHPRPT/ihprpt.html.
23. Ranney Adams, "Air Force Research Laboratory Leading U.S. Rocket Engine Innovations," Aerotech News and Review, July 14, 2003, http://www.aerotechnews.com/ StoryArchive/2003/071403/afrl.html.
24. Schario, "Powering the Future."
25. Garscadden and Kelly, "Rapid Aerospace Response."
26. Remen, interview.
27. Dr. Greg Spanjers, "New Satellite Propulsion System Has Mass Below 100 Grams," Technology Horizons Magazine, December 2001.
28. Garscadden and Kelly, "Rapid Aerospace Response."
AuthorAffiliation
MAJ MICHAEL F. KELLY, USAF, RETIRED
Copyright U.S. Superintendent of Documents Spring 2004
x111 Adams, Eric. : Is This What War Will Come To? Even as the Pentagon struggles with the low-tech reality of war in Iraq, it looks to increasingly bizarre-sounding technology for next-gen fighting systems. On the following pages, five chapters from the Pentagon's sci-fi future.;
2004-06
Popular Science 264.6 (Jun 2004): 62.
Abstract (summary)
Even as the Pentagon struggles with the low-tech reality of war in Iraq, its defense engineers are looking to increasingly bizarre-sounding technology for the next generation of defense weaponry. Among the projects being researching and planned are a kinetic missile that flies at Mach 7 and a a gun that fires a million rounds a minute.
Full Text
See also additional image(s) in Cover Image file and Table ofContents of same issue
If U.S. military weapons planners have learned anything from the varied conflicts of the past quarter century, it is that the challenges are not getting any more predictable. With the nature and capabilities of U.S. opponents changing on practically an engagement-by-engagement basis, deciding which new weapon technologies will best serve soldiers in the battle theaters of the future remains a high-stakes guessing game.
The enemy is no longer necessarily a nation; it can be a terrorist cell. The enemy may not possess high-tech weaponry yet still pose a threat--by exploding truck bombs on suicide missions or by firing hand-launched missiles against F/A-22 fighter jets. Nor, despite the absolute technological supremacy of the U.S. military today, can strategists afford to ignore the possibility that a nation that has developed advanced weaponry might come to pose a threat in a nightmare future.
The Joint Chiefs of Staff, which mulls responses to future conflict scenarios, is preparing for everything from ground invasions of North Korea to air strikes against terrorist camps. "The process is complicated by the fact that you are less certain than ever who you will be fighting and the circumstances under which you will be fighting them," says John Pike, a senior military analyst at GlobalSecurity.org, a think tank that specializes in evaluations of military technology and strategy. "When you don't know what problem you're trying to solve, it's hard to come to a solution."
Efficiency is also a factor to a military that finds itself stretched from old bases in Europe to wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to calls for intervention in Africa, Haiti and other hotspots. The scores of potential combat scenarios sketched out by the Joint Chiefs, as well as individual branches of the U.S. military, have convinced the Department of Defense that a fast-track modernization program is critical to national security. Many current weapons systems are fast becoming out-of-date, from aging attack helicopter fleets to the early-'60s-designed rifles troops carry on the ground. Key trends will be automation--unmanned land, air and underwater vehicles; communication networks that connect all the players in a battle theater, so that information flows freely between pilots, foot soldiers and commanders; and finding new ways to solve old problems--such as firing ballistics electrically rather than with explosives.
But perhaps more in need of overhaul than the weapons systems themselves is the process that produces them. New weapons typically start out as ideas developed in one of the R&D labs belonging to the U.S. military or to private defense contractors such as Raytheon, Lockheed Martin or hundreds of smaller companies around the country. As it progresses, though, a new technology may get bogged down by Byzantine red tape and excessive everything-but-the-kitchen-sink tinkering. Years may elapse--5, 10, 15 or more--while proposals and demonstrations are requested, Congressional approvals secured, contractors chosen, and the technology tested and fielded--and by then the weapon that emerges may be technologically obsolete, or designed for threats that no longer exist. The Defense Department has a history of continuing to fund needless programs because of political pressures and sheer momentum. A prime example: the Army's Comanche attack helicopter, which was canceled in February after a 21-year, $6.9 billion development program. One of its key missions, battlefield reconnaissance, is quickly being usurped by far less expensive unmanned aerial vehicles.
Weapons procurement is also plagued by redundancy: More than one branch of the armed services may develop different systems that accomplish the same goal. This could range from small-caliber bullets being developed for each branch up to entire weapons platforms.
Then there's the chicken-and-egg problem. New weapons usually address specific needs, but the reverse can occur. Military leaders can simply be dazzled by new technologies, and develop weapons to exploit them. "These are often solutions in search of problems," cautions analyst Loren Thompson of the Arlington, Virginia-based Lexington Institute, a Department of Defense watchdog organization. Meanwhile, U.S. military supremacy has made certain weapons systems seem like overkill--the submarine fleet, for example. In the case of the supercavitating torpedo described in this article, skeptics ask where the need is. "If we ever face a hostile navy again I'd like to take a look at it," says Thompson. "Obviously it's an improvement over what we have, but what's the enemy? It's not enough to have a weapon that can use new technology creatively. It needs to answer a valid military need or threat." It's also wise to recognize that the technological supremacy that drove U.S. forces into the heart of Baghdad in record time won't necessarily forestall the low-tech agony of the fight that has followed.
To streamline weapons development, in the mid-1990s the Department of Defense implemented its advanced concept technology demonstration program, a sort of try-before-you-buy setup that helps bypass usual R&D hurdles. One result: In 1997 the Air Force, after only two-and-a-half years of development, put the Predator unmanned aerial vehicle into service. Then, in 2002, with only minimal testing, they equipped several of the drones with Hellfire missiles and used one to attack an al Qaeda vehicle in Yemen. "Someone came up with the idea and just did it," says Patrick Garrett, an associate analyst at GlobalSecurity.org. "It harkens back to the good old days of WWII."
Another example of DoD-backed corner-cutting: the littoral combat ship, a versatile vessel with interchangeable modules that can be a minesweeper one day and a special forces troop lander the next. "It normally takes a decade or so for a new ship class to be decided," says Garrett, "but the Navy put out the bid in 2002, had five or six shipbuilders come up with designs, and they're hoping to start construction in 2005. That's a major feat."
Officials hope new technologies will shorten combat, minimize casualties, and enable attacks to be carried out with greater precision. Many weapons in the pipeline, such as the space-launched darts and electromagnetic railgun, will use no explosives at all, relying instead on kinetic energy to destroy targets. Some, like Metal Storm, will use electricity rather than mechanical firing mechanisms. Laser weapons will disable enemy gear with heat rather than force, providing pinpoint accuracy and speed-of-light delivery.
#1 A KINETIC MISSILE THAT FLIES AT MACH 7
Picture this: A massive destroyer receives the location coordinates of an enemy headquarters more than 200 miles away. Instead of launching a million-dollar Tomahawk cruise missile, it points a gun barrel in the direction of the target, diverts electric power from the ship's engine to the gun turret, and launches a 3-foot-long, 40-pound projectile up a set of superconducting rails. The projectile leaves the barrel at hypersonic velocity--Mach 7-plus--exits the Earth's atmosphere, re-enters under satellite guidance, and lands on the building less than six minutes later; its incredible velocity vaporizes the target with kinetic energy alone.
The U.S. Navy is developing an electromagnetic railgun that will turn destroyers into super-long-range machine guns--able to fire up to a dozen relatively inexpensive projectiles every minute. The Navy is collaborating with the British Ministry of Defence, which has a similar effort under way. In 2003, its facility in Kirkcudbright, Scotland, hosted a 1/8-scale test of an electromagnetic railgun that produced stable flight in a projectile fired out of the barrel at Mach 6. But Capt. Roger McGinnis, program manager for directed energy weapons at Naval Sea Systems Command in Washington, D.C., estimates the U.S. version won't be "deliverable" until 2015 at the earliest.
The technology behind the electromagnetic railgun has been around for more than 20 years, but early efforts wilted because of the huge power requirements: No ship could generate or store enough electricity to fire the gun. The concept was revived a few years ago when the Navy announced plans for its next-generation battleship, the all-electric DD(X). "In the past, destroyers had 90 percent of their power tied to propulsion," explains McGinnis. "But with DD(X), you can divert the power to whatever you need. We can stop the ship and fire the railgun as many times as we need, then divert the power back to the screws."
The barrel of the electromagnetic railgun will contain two parallel conducting rails about 20 feet long, bridged by a sliding armature. In the current design, electric current travels up one rail, crosses the armature, and heads down the second rail. The loop induces a magnetic field that pushes the armature, and the projectile aboard it, up the rails.
The challenges that remain include ensuring that the gun can target enemy sites with precision, and creating equipment that can withstand the gargantuan pressures the gun will create. "Right now, guns are only as accurate as the targeting of the bore, and now we're talking about 200-plus-mile ranges, so there has to be aerodynamic correction," says Fred Beach, the assistant program manager for the electromagnetic railgun at Naval Sea Systems Command. The projectile, he says, will receive course correction information from satellites and will steer itself with movable control surfaces. And because the projectile will be subjected to up to 45,000 Gs during firing, the onboard electronics must be strengthened to withstand the acceleration. Forces inside the gun itself--particularly getting the armature to move easily within the system--are also challenging the designers. "Getting two pieces of metal to slide past each other is pretty hard--we're getting a lot of damage to the rails," Beach says.
The electromagnetic railgun's projectiles will cover 290 miles in six minutes--initially traveling 8,200 feet per second and hitting their target at 5,000 feet per second. Current Navy guns, which shoot powder-ignited explosive shells, have a maximum range of 12 miles and, because they are unguided, are difficult to aim. Though guided missiles, the current long-range alternative for destroyers, can achieve ranges comparable to that of the electromagnetic railgun, their cost and storage problems are what's driving the efforts to find an alternative. Ships can only carry up to 70 guided missiles and must return to port to restock because the missiles cannot be loaded at sea, whereas railgun projectiles can easily be loaded at sea, and by the hundreds. Also appealing is that the electromagnetic railgun's missiles do not contain volatile explosives; the weapon does its work with kinetic energy.
#2 A ROCKET TORPEDO THAT SWIMS IN AN AIR BUBBLE
Submarines peaked in power and relevance during the Cold War; there has since been a shift in focus to aircraft-based combat, and subs have become budget-cut victims. But subs are still prized for their ability to sneak about global waters undetected and to defend surface ships from attack. Many U.S. subs are being converted from missile launchers into delivery vehicles for special operations troops.
But the supercavitating torpedo--a rocket-propelled weapon that speeds through the water enveloped in a nearly frictionless air bubble--may render obsolete the old submarine strategy of sly maneuvering and silent running to evade the enemy. The superfast torpedo could be outfitted with conventional explosive warheads, nuclear tips or nothing at all--a 5,000-pound, 230-mph missile could do enough damage on its own. The Russians invented the concept during the Cold War, and their version of this underwater killer--dubbed the Shkval ("Squall")--has recently been made available on the international weapons market; the United States, of course, wants a new, improved version of the original.
The hard part about building a rocket-propelled torpedo isn't so much the propulsion as clearing a path through the ocean. Water creates speed-sapping drag; the best way to overcome that drag is to create a bubble that envelops the torpedo--a supercavity. A gas ejected uniformly and with enough force through a cavitator in the nose of the torpedo will provide such a bubble, permitting speeds of more than 200 mph and a range of up to 5 miles (traditional torpedoes have slightly longer ranges, but lumber at only 30 to 40 mph).
Though submerged, the torpedo remains essentially dry, with a frictionless surface. "That sounds easy, but doing it is extremely difficult, especially if you're trying to steer," says Kam Ng, program manager for the torpedo at the Office of Naval Research, which has been developing the weapon since 1997. "If your torpedo moves in a straight line, you just aim and shoot," says Ng. "That capability already exists with Shkval. But the U.S. vehicle will be more capable--it will turn, identify objects, and home in on the target." (Improvements to the torpedo to make it steerable likely froze when the Soviet Union collapsed, says GlobalSecurity.org's Pike.)
Among the greatest challenges for U.S. torpedo researchers is developing detection and homing technology that will enable the torpedo to distinguish an enemy sub from, say, a rock formation, says Ng. Also tricky is finding a way to control the gas bubble to permit those course changes. "When you turn, the bubble distorts because it is no longer symmetrical," he says. "So you have to compensate for that by putting more bubble to one side." This is done, Ng explains, by ejecting more gas toward the outside of the turn.
Naval officials say the high-speed torpedo will enable submarines to attack enemy subs and surface ships without giving them time to respond. The U.S. military has tested a prototype, but combat-ready versions are not expected for at least 15 years.
#3 A LASER CANNON THAT BLASTS FROM THE AIR
Directed-energy weapon specialists at the Air Force Research Laboratory are close to overcoming the two main hurdles that have confined laser weapons to science fiction for the last half-century. Tests by lead contractor Boeing have demonstrated that the laser has enough power to function as a weapon, and that the chemical exhaust, which could pose a considerable threat to the weapon's operators and individuals on the ground, can be safely contained in a sealed system. If all goes according to the U.S. Special Operations Command's plan, within a decade or so the Advanced Tactical Laser may introduce a new class of weaponry to the battlefield.
The weapon's first incarnation, expected by 2010 at the earliest, will be a megawatt-class chemical oxygen-iodine laser (COIL) fired from a rotating turret beneath the nose of a C-130 gunship. The beam could be up to 4 inches in diameter and have a 20-mile range--enabling it to burn through vehicles and machinery with a precision and millisecond timing that missiles and cannons can't achieve. (Cannons, in particular--now centuries old in concept--are tricky to aim. These "indirect fire" weapons must be pointed far from the target to factor in wind speed, humidity, firing force--even the rotation of the Earth.)
Next on the agenda: developing targeting, tracking and firing hardware. Among the questions researchers must answer: how long must the beam linger on a target to have the desired effect. "There are some interesting things with the directed energy technologies that we just don't know about," says Lt. Col. Joseph Panetta Jr., program manager for the Advanced Tactical Laser at the U.S. Special Operations Command headquarters at MacDill Air Force Base in Florida. "We need to determine exactly how it will perform on the battlefield."
Laser weapons are a relative bargain compared with existing long-range weapons: They're expected to cost $8,000 per shot versus up to hundreds of thousands for missiles. Lasers are also tunable, which adds versatility: When less-than-lethal force is required, such as in urban areas or when hostages are present, the beam's duration can be reduced so that it disables technology but only injures people. "We want a system that can generate a variety of effects on the battlefield, from damaging something to totally destroying it, to just kind of harassing with it," Panetta says. "This seems to offer us that."
Next-gen tactical lasers will likely be electrically-powered and diode-pumped, since chemical lasers require storage and transport of heavy ingredients. The greatest challenge with electric lasers, says Lt. Col. JoAnn Erno, head of the power division at the Air Force Research Laboratory at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio, is managing the heat that's generated--lasers are only 10 percent efficient, so 90 percent of the power is lost in heat. "Controlling the heat will require active cooling," she says, "such as spraying the laser's diodes to keep them from overheating." Solid-state lasers will be smaller than chemical ones, permitting their use on fighter jets and ground vehicles. The Joint Strike Fighter, due to enter service in 2009, is a well-suited potential platform, says Erno, because its engine includes a metal shaft that spins fast enough to easily power a laser.
Lasers are an example of a weapon that should be developed for multiple uses, says Garrett. "If you can get several [military] branches to use it instead of four different devices that do the same thing, you can make it cheaper by cutting down logistics problems and easing training."
#4 SPACE-LAUNCHED DARTS THAT STRIKE LIKE METEORS
This technology is very far out--in miles and years. A pair of satellites orbiting several hundred miles above the Earth would serve as a weapons system. One functions as the targeting and communications platform while the other carries numerous tungsten rods--up to 20 feet in length and a foot in diameter--that it can drop on targets with less than 15 minutes' notice. When instructed from the ground, the targeting satellite commands its partner to drop one of its darts. The guided rods enter the atmosphere, protected by a thermal coating, traveling at 36,000 feet per second--comparable to the speed of a meteor. The result: complete devastation of the target, even if it's buried deep underground. (The two-platform configuration permits the weapon to be "reloaded" by just launching a new set of rods, rather than replacing the entire system.)
The concept of kinetic-energy weapons has been around ever since the RAND Corporation proposed placing rods on the tips of ICBMs in the 1950s; the satellite twist was popularized by sci-fi writer Jerry Pournelle. Though the Pentagon won't say how far along the research is, or even confirm that any efforts are underway, the concept persists. The "U.S. Air Force Transformation Flight Plan," published by the Air Force in November 2003, references "hypervelocity rod bundles" in its outline of future space-based weapons, and in 2002, another report from RAND, "Space Weapons, Earth Wars," dedicated entire sections to the technology's usefulness.
If so-called "Rods from God"--an informal nickname of untraceable origin--ever do materialize, it won't be for at least 15 years. Launching heavy tungsten rods into space will require substantially cheaper rocket technology than we have today. But there are numerous other obstacles to making such a system work. Pike, of GlobalSecurity.org, argues that the rods' speed would be so high that they would vaporize on impact, before the rods could penetrate the surface. Furthermore, the "absentee ratio"--the fact that orbiting satellites circle the Earth every 100 minutes and so at any given time might be far from the desired target--would be prohibitive. A better solution, Pike argues, is to pursue the original concept: Place the rods atop intercontinental ballistic missiles, which would slow down enough during the downward part of their trajectory to avoid vaporizing on impact. ICBMs would also be less expensive and, since they're stationed on Earth, would take less time to reach their targets. "The space-basing people seem to understand the downside of space weapons," Pike says--among them, high costs and the difficulty of maintaining weapon platforms in orbit. "But I'll still bet you there's a lot of classified work on this going on right now."
#5 A GUN THAT FIRES A MILLION ROUNDS A MINUTE
Firing a gun has always been an intensely mechanical process: Pull the trigger and a hammer strikes the back of a bullet--usually inserted into the chamber by a spring mechanism--causing explosive powder in the bullet to shoot out a slug. The slug exits the front of the barrel and another spring ejects the empty shell from the side of the gun.
For centuries, gun manufacturers have only been able to finesse the firing process, and guns remain prone to jamming, misfiring due to deterioration of moving parts, and occasional explosive failure that can kill or severely injure the soldier firing the weapon. The Australian company Metal Storm has an answer: Bring digital technology to what has been one of the battlefield's last holdouts from the electronics revolution. Metal Storm's solution--now being examined by the Department of Defense--is to remove virtually every moving part from modern guns and replace them with electronic ballistic technology and computerized controls. Bullets stacked in the barrel fire at rates of up to 60,000 rounds per minute, even a million in certain multi-barrel configurations. Coded electric signals ignite propellant embedded within each specially designed bullet. The pressure created by the small explosion pushes out the bullet while at the same time enlarging the bullet behind it, sealing the barrel and preventing the other charges from igniting until commanded to do so.
Though hand-carried versions won't fire at a million rounds per minute--no soldier would want to reload every three milliseconds--vehicle-mounted systems could. Art Schatz, the senior vice president of operations in Washington, D.C., says that if larger barrels were clustered on the back of a Humvee or in a helicopter, the result would be a powerful "area-denial" weapon. The system can be adjusted to meet various needs. "We're not talking about always firing at a million rounds per minute," Schatz says. "But if you've got one of these mounted in an aircraft and have a rocket-propelled grenade coming at you, you can in an instant have 200 little bullets intercepting it." Moreover, Metal Storm could fire nonlethal rounds such as rubber bullets--for, say, crowd dispersal. The system's key drawback: The guns require electrical power, making them yet another gadget soldiers will need to keep supplied with batteries.
The Metal Storm system has been tested on rounds ranging from 9mm to 60mm, and in a variety of weapons, including the O'Dwyer VLe (a "smart gun" with electronic safety controls, named after company founder Mike O'Dwyer), and clustered pods of barrels that achieve the million-round-per-minute numbers. The U.S. military is helping fund Metal Storm. If the Pentagon decides to adopt the weapon, it will probably enter use in 5 to 10 years--that's how long it will take for the military to design new weapons around the system, test them, and distribute them to soldiers.
Eric Adams is POPSCI's aviation and automotive editor.
#1 ELECTRO-MAGNETIC RAILGUN
Projectiles fired from an electromagnetic railgun will travel up to 290 miles in less than six minutes, exiting the atmosphere before hurling into their target at a velocity of 5,000 feet per second. The force of the impact will obliterate targets without an explosive aid.
A railgun uses electric current to launch a projectile. The current--up to 15 million amps--travels up one rail and down the second (1). This current induces a magnetic field across an armature (2) that bridges the rails. This armature also carries a current; the interaction between this current and the magnetic field accelerates the armature, and the projectile aboard it, to Mach 7 (3). Adjusting the range of the weapon is as easy as reducing the electric current supplied to the rails--the lower the current, the slower the projectile leaves the barrel and the shorter the distance it travels.
#2 SUPER-CAVITATING TORPEDO Several challenges remain for the supercavitating torpedo, including how it will be steered underwater. Water-tunnel tests have already proven that speed can be achieved: In 1997, the Navy tested a supercavitating projectile that reached 5,082 feet per second, becoming the first underwater projectile to exceed Mach 1.
#3 ADVANCED TACTICAL LASER The Advanced Tactical Laser, fired from a Special Forces A/C-130 Gunship, will have a range of up to 20 miles, as well as pinpoint accuracy and speed-of-light responsiveness. The first generation will employ chemical lasers, which will later be replaced by diode-pumped solid-state lasers powered by electricity.
#4 RODS FROM GOD Space-based weapons have exceptionally disparate advantages and disadvantages: They are extremely powerful and difficult to defend against, but they're also expensive to launch and maintain and they're in constant motion above the Earth.
#5 METAL STORM Metal Storm weapons replace mechanical firing systems in conventional guns with coded electrical ignitions. These can be programmed to fire at any rate, from thousands of rounds per second to just one at a time. According to the manufacturer, the technique can be used with both lethal and nonlethal rounds (such as rubber bullets). The guns can also be electronically secured so only authorized users can fire them.
Watch Metal Storm in action at popsci.com/exclusive
Illustration
COLOR PHOTO ILLUSTRATION
TERMINAL VELOCITY
This orbiting platform would rely on kinetic energy alone.
Tungsten rods dropped on buildings or underground bunkers would
strike at hypersonic velocities, vaporizing targets instantly.
COLOR ILLUSTRATION: JOHN MACNEILL
COLOR ILLUSTRATION: JOHN MACNEILL
All-electric DD(X), the Navy's next-gen surface combat ship, will
be able to divert power from the propellers to the railgun.
A cradle-like device called a sabot supports projectile in gun
barrel, then detaches after firing.
Projectile's launch velocity is 8,200 feet per second.
Since the projectiles have no explosives, storage aboard ship is
much safer.
COLOR ILLUSTRATION: JOHN MACNEILL
1
2
3
Projectile
Armature
Electric current
Rails
Magnetic field
COLOR ILLUSTRATION: JOHN MACNEILL
Cavitator ejects gas through the torpedo's nose.
Detection and homing electronics keep torpedo on target.
Cavity-piercing control fins steer the missile.
Storage tanks for bubble-generating gas.
Rocket motor accelerates weapon to 230 mph.
COLOR ILLUSTRATION: JOHN MACNEILL
Rotating turret provides 360-degree targeting.
COLOR ILLUSTRATION: JOHN MACNEILL
Sealed exhaust ensures safety of crew members and ground
personnel.
Chemicals processed in platform generate laser beam.
COLOR ILLUSTRATION: JOHN MACNEILL
Communications and targeting platform receives instructions from
the ground and identifies the target.
Partnered rod "cartridge" ejects tungsten projectile.
COLOR ILLUSTRATION: JOHN MACNEILL
Clustering barrels together can raise firing rates of individual
weapons to a million rounds per minute.
COLOR ILLUSTRATION: JOHN MACNEILL
Electric charge ignites propellant embedded within slugs.
Pressure from each shot expands the next round, sealing the
barrel and preventing accidental firing.
x112 Tuttle, Rich : Directed energy weapons could change war, analyst says
2004-11
Abstract:
Richard Dunn, a senior analyst at Northrop Grumman Corp.'s Analysis Center in Arlington, Va., said directed energy weapons promise to be far more effective than guns in shooting down missiles. A bomber armed with a laser could, in theory, easily defeat a missile aimed at it.
"We may not be the people" who figure out how best to use such weapons, Dunn said. "A lot of other countries [are] looking at directed energy weapons because [they] will counter all these fancy, high-tech, super-duper missiles that the United States has."
Full text:
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. - Directed energy weapons could change the way wars are fought, an analyst said at a conference here, but they must have the backing of senior leaders.
Richard Dunn, a senior analyst at Northrop Grumman Corp.'s Analysis Center in Arlington, Va., said directed energy weapons promise to be far more effective than guns in shooting down missiles. A bomber armed with a laser could, in theory, easily defeat a missile aimed at it.
The implication, Dunn said, is that the Air Force would no longer need "to suppress all these SAMs [surface to air missiles] and so forth over tens of thousands of square miles - a big change in how quickly you can apply air power." But it's not clear that Air Force leaders would back such a change, he said.
Similarly, Army leaders might not be enthusiastic about directed energy weapons even though they promise to easily shoot down incoming artillery shells. This might mean a drop in the need for heavily armored vehicles.
Precision weapons
"We may not be the people" who figure out how best to use such weapons, Dunn said. "A lot of other countries [are] looking at directed energy weapons because [they] will counter all these fancy, high-tech, super-duper missiles that the United States has."
He said, "you really have to have a crisis, or almost a crisis, or a disaster, in order for leaders to make the really painful choices that you have to make. For example, the Air Force would have to cut the number of short-range strike aircraft to really take full advantage of capability of precision munitions."
These munitions are 15 times more likely to hit a target than non-precision munitions, meaning the strike aircraft force would have to be only one-fifteenth as large as it is today, he said.
Dunn spoke Nov. 15 at the two-day "Understanding Defense Transformation: Winning the War on Terrorism and Beyond" conference, sponsored by the Heritage Foundation of Washington and the El Pomar Foundation of Colorado Springs.
- Rich Tuttle (richtut@aol.com)
Subject: Aircraft; Armed forces; Missile defense; Lasers; Military strategy; Modernization; Effectiveness
Location: United States, US
Company / organization: Name: Northrop Grumman Corp; Ticker: NOC; NAICS: 336411, 336611
Classification: 9550: Public sector; 8680: Transportation equipment industry; 9190: United States
Publication title: Aerospace Daily & Defense Report
Volume: 212
Issue: 36
Pages: 5
Number of pages: 0
Publication year: 2004
Publication date: Nov 19, 2004
x113 Doug Beason, Ph.D : The E-BOMB: How America's New Directed Energy weapons Will Change the Way Future Wars Will Be Fought
2005
"THE E-BOMB: How America's New Directed Energy Weapons Will change the Way Future Wars Will Be Fought", Doug Beason, Ph.D., 2005
+++ page ix
Directed Energy (DE) encompasses a wide, cross-disciplinary field of science and engineering. It is nearly impossible to enumerate the many academic and technical disciplines that make up DE, as it includes fields as diverse as physics and engineering to psychology (for studying the Active Denial effect). The people who have advanced the research and development of DE are just as numerous.
...
DE research and development has been shrouded in a veil of secrecy. there are national security reasons for not revealing certain applications or vulnerabilities. My reviewers and I have been careful to ensure that no classified or insider information has been disclosed. I relied on publicly released information as well as interviews to build the story of directed energy.
~Doug Beason
+++ page xii
1973 The air force's classified Project Delta downs an aerial drone with a high-energy laser.
1976 Army shoots down a drone and a helicopter at Redstone arsenal with an Avco electric discharge laser (EDL)
1977 McDermott and his team invent the COIL (chemical oxygen-iodine laser)
1978 Navy shoots down an army TOW missile with a TRW 400-kilowatt deuterium fluoride (DF) laser at San Juan Capistrano
1983 Airborne Laser Lab downs an AIM-9B Sidewinder missile with a CO2 laser
1993 USAF establishes the Airborne Laser System Program Office at the Phillips Lab
2001 Defense Department declassifies Active Denial, the first nonlethal DE antipersonnel weapon
2002 Army's THEL laser destroys Katyshu rockets, artillery rounds, and mortar shells at White Sands Missile Range
2003 ZEUS, the Army's anti-land mine laser, deployed to Afghanistan
2006 NIRF, the navy's anti-IED (improvised explosive device) high-power microwave, scheduled for deployment in Iraq
+++ page 9
Directed Energy (DE) weapons -- lasers, high-power microwaves (HPMs), and particle beams -- have come of age. Over the past two decades, directed energy power has increased by nine orders of magnitude -- over a billion times -- from millwatt to megawatt.
+++ page 10
National leaders will soon ahve the abiliyt to instantly deter threats anywhere in the world with infinite precision at the speed of light. The dynamic changes this will make to international relations will reverberate throughout American society. It will transform our way of life.
This is because directed energy is more than a new weapon in the warrior's arsenal. It's about a completely new way of thinking, a new way of employing both strategic and nonlethal force, and interacting in the international community.
+++ page 11
The date for this scenario? Summer 2001 -- months before the September 11 terorist attack on the World Trade Center.
The place? White Sands, New Mexico, only miles from the Trinity site, birthplace of the world's first atomic blast, another revolution in military affairs.
To date, over 30 Katyusha rockets have been shot down in realistic scenarios such as this by THEL -- tactical high-energy laser, the world's first high-energy laser weapon developed by the U.S. army and funded by the Israeli government for deployment along Israel's borders.
+++ page 12
Largely shrouded in highly classified environment, directed energy weapons research is conducted by a cadre of closed-mouthed technical wizards.
+++ page 171
On August 21, 2003, the U.S. army and Irsraeli Ministry of Defense announced the slection of NOrthrop Grumman Corporation's design for MTHEL, the mobile tactical high-energy laser, a protoypte laser weapon capable of shooting down short-range rockets and artillery. [Northrop Grumman, press release, August 21, 2003.] MTHEL is an advanced, mobile version of the THEL, an advanced concept technology demonstrator (ACTD) initiated in 1996 by the Defense Department and subsequently tested at the army's White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico.
THEL was designed and built by an international team led by Northrop Grummand, including Ball Aerospace and Brashear LP, with several Israeli companies, including Electro-Optic Industries, Israel Aircraft Industries, Yehud Industrial Zone, RAFAEL, and Tadiran.
+++ page 181
The ABL (airborne laser) uses a weapons-class laser system, but it has to be carried in the most heavily modified 747 ever built. The present result is a platform that is loaded to the max, with little margin to add additional weight, say laser fuel, to lase longer, since adding weight cuts down on the time the ABL can stay in the air. Adding a refueling capability will extend the time the ABL can spend in combat, but the extra time also stresses the crew and airframe.
+++ page 182
Advance tactical laser (ATL), the shorter-range, tactical airborne COIL laser system, began as an engineering feat looking for an application.
...
High-power microwaves in the form of long-wavelength radars achieved weapons-class power levels decades ago. But reducing the size of the system to something smaller than a battleship has kept the technology off the battlefield for years -- until the Active Denial effect was discovered and exploited.
+++ page 185
Recall that lasers and microwves are just manifestations of the same thing, the electromagnetic spectrum. Lasers and HPM both consist of photons, or electromagnetic waves that have different wavelengths. Laser wavelengths run from ultraviolet to infrared -- from 0.4 to0.7 microns (or 0.16 millionths of an inch to 0.28 millionths of an inch), while high-power microwaves are generally defined as having wavelengths of anywhere from a meter to a cenimeter (or 3 feet to a third of an inch). That covers just a small part of th electromagnetic (EM) spectrum.
+++ page 186
The interaction of radio waves -- {long part of the EM spectrum the covers wavelengths from a tenth of a centimeter [EHF, or extremely high frequency wves) down to wves over 100 kilometers in length [VLF, or very low frequency]} -- with matter is well known and has been documented for years. ... [W]aves of the electromanetic spectrum generally have to be the same size of the target or object ot cause any damage. In a simplified view, lasers burrow into solid material quite well because their wavelengths are about the same size as molecultes. Lasers can thus deposit their energy and "resonate" with the size of the solid material they hit, including metals.
On the other hand, although high-power microwaves can penetrate building walls and sirupt computers, they can't penetrate metals and don't do much damage to things like trucks or missiles. Instead, they interact with targets that are the same size of its wavelength (meters to millimeters), such as human skin and sires in electronics. This coupling, a measure of the amount of interaction, is greater for things that are the same size as an HPM wavelength.
This means that radio waves don't interact efficiently with targets unless they are the same size. And since radio waves are hundreds of meters to hundreds of kilometers long, they pass through most material and aren't much of a threat.
High-power microwave wavelengths are the longest part of the EM spectrum that can be used effectively as a weapon.
+++ page 188
Free electron lasers (FEL) represent a unique way of creating laser radiation without the use of chemicals, crystals, or any of the traditional means of generating beams. They are classed as electric lasers and can produce any wavelength, from extreme ultraviolet to microwaves.
+++ page 190
An FEL is essentially an electric laser; the laser light is created by an accelerating electron beam as it "wiggles" back and forth through a series of alternating magnets...
+++ page 213
Laser power has increased over a billion times in the past four decades, allowing laser weapons to soon be fielded in the air (ABL, ATL),on the ground (MTHEL, ZEUS), and within a decade or so on the sea (FEL).
Research in millimeter wave technology, an extremely short-wave version of the radio frequency spectrum, produce ADS (Active Denial System), the world's first long-range, nonlethal antipersonnel weapon that no only gives war fighters the option for assessing the intent of the attackers but also proivides a clear option between two wildly disparate options of shouting at people and shooting them.
+++ page 214-216
Lasers and high-power microwaves are simply different manifestations of the electromagnetic spectrum. They both consist of photons -- bundles of electromagnetic energy -- and the only difference between the two is that they have different energy, a function of wavelength, or equivalent frequency.
Because of this difference in energy, lasers and high-power microwaves have to be created in different ways. In addition, they propagate through the atmosphere and in space differently, and they interact with targets differently.
Laser wvelengths are as much as 10,000 times smaller than microwaves. As such, they diffract up to 10,000 times less than microwaves, which allows lasers to propagate up to 10,000 times farther than a similarly generated microwave to deposit the same energy on a target. This allows lasers to use high-precision reflecting mirrors to redirect their devestation throughout the battlefield, and with the use of space-based relay mirrors, perhaps even around the globe.
However, lasers scatter in the atmosphere more than microwaves do because the laser wavelength is about the same size as atmospheric gas molecules.
Finally, when a laser hits a target, it tends to heat up the target material and burn away layer anfter layer, producing a copious plume of plasma. The ABL uses this heat-producing mechanism to weaken the skin of a ballistic missile around the missile's fuel tank, allowing the tank's internal pressure to explode; MTHEL uses its laser's heating mechanism to cause a rocket warheat to explode.
On the other hand, because the wavelength of a high-power microwave is so much larger than that of a laser, the HPM interacts with the electronics and circuits of a weapon.
...
However, microwaves are not yet ready for prime time. Much work needs to be accomplished increating microwve power and shrinking the infrastructure that generates HPM...
Active Denial uses a high-frequency version of HPM caled millimeter waves to heat up a minuscule depth of a person's skin to create a "flee" effect. It provides an ultraprecise, unique, nonlethal means of countering personnel actions.
Despite the outward dissimilarities between lasers and HPM, their similarities far outweigh their perceived differences:
- They both exploit parts of the electromagnetic spectrum.
- They are both impervious to the effects of gravity or ballistic motion.
- They are both ultraprecise, allowing for enormous amounts of energy to be applied exactly wehre the war fighter wants. This is in contrast to kinetic energy precision weapons, which although relatively accurate ... may have devastating, unintended collateral effects -- such as death -- due to blast and fragments.
And the most important apsect of directed energy weapons is the best feature of all: their speed. Kinetic energy weapons reach their target at the speed of sound, or in the case of ballistic missiles, at velocities up to Mach 20, or 20 times the speed of sound, enabling them to hit targets around the globe on the order of 45 minutes.
...
[H]aving an ultraprecise wapon capable of striking around the globe almost instantaneously, in less than a second, provides the technological advantage needed to defeat the next generation of adversaries.
And that advantage is only provided by directed energy weapons capable of engaging the enemy at the speed of light.
x114 Hideo Kozima : The Science of the Cold Fusion Phenomenon: In Search of the Physics and Chemistry behind Complex Experimental Data Sets
2006
x115 Barrie, Douglas : Focused Effort: Key Tests Loom for U.K. Directed-Energy Weapon
2007-08
Author: Barrie, Douglas
Abstract:
Britain is ready to begin a final series of test firings of a directed-energy warhead that, if successful, could see a system fielded shortly after the turn of the decade. The weapon--believed to be a radio-frequency package--is suitable for delivery by a cruise missile, but could also be carried by an unmanned combat air vehicle (UCAV). This may be why at least part of the program is being run by the Defense Ministry's Strategic Unmanned Air Vehicle Experiment (Suave) project team. RF warheads potentially offer the ability to temporarily or permanently damage electronic components that are critical to the performance of modern weapons.
Full text:
Britain is ready to begin a final series of test firings of a directed-energy warhead that, if successful, could see a system fielded shortly after the turn of the decade.
The weapon--believed to be a radio-frequency package--is suitable for delivery by a cruise missile, but could also be carried by an unmanned combat air vehicle (UCAV). This may be why at least part of the program is being run by the Defense Ministry's Strategic Unmanned Air Vehicle Experiment (Suave) project team.
The test program will run for around two years with the aim being to look at the performance of the directed-energy package against a number of targets. The trials also will likely help inform the ministry's concept of operations in the use of radio-frequency weapons.
RF warheads potentially offer the ability to temporarily or permanently damage electronic components that are critical to the performance of modern weapons. Their development and application is being pursued by, at least, the U.S., Russia, France, Germany, China and Israel, along with the U.K. Design approaches include single-shot and multiple-pulse high-power microwave (HPM) systems.
Directed-energy weaponry was identified as an important area within the government's Defense Technology Strategy. These covered both RF and laser damage and dazzle systems.
The U.K. arm of European missile manufacturer MBDA is one industry focal point for British directed-energy weapons research and development. BAE Systems has carried out research into RF and laser weapons; Thales also has pursued directed-energy applications, as has Qinetiq.
In the past, the Defense Ministry has identified the introduction of a "novel" guided-weapon capability by 2011. The ministry uses "novel" as a catch-all term for directed-energy systems. Development of the RF weapon is classified, but the program was previously associated with the name "Virus." This has likely changed, however.
The MBDA Storm Shadow cruise missile is an initial candidate delivery vehicle for the RF payload. RF weapons are also in the longer term likely payloads for UCAVs. As part of its UCAV activities, the ministry is also funding work into propulsion systems capable of supporting the energy requirements of RF and laser weaponry.
MBDA U.K. has a "novel systems" team that conducts the company's research into directed-energy weaponry. MBDA is also the industry prime on the Defense Ministry's High-Power Microwave Principal Program. This is a 36-month long effort aimed at examining pulsed-power technologies that have potential military applications.
In 2005, MBDA executives visited Russia as part of a larger industry and academia group to look at Moscow's capabilities in HPM technologies. Russia has been carrying out R&D extensively into RF weapons for at least two decades.
Broad study work into issues associated with directed-energy weaponry is also being conducted within one of the government's "Towers of Excellence." A special interest group within the electronic warfare tower (including MBDA and BAE) is considering areas that include concepts of operations for the use of directed-energy systems.
Within the ministry, the Defense Science and Technology Laboratory is leading the directed-energy applications work. This has included collaborative research on HPM technology with the Netherlands and Sweden.
MBDA work has covered research into the use of flux compressors and antenna subsystems for RF payloads, with both narrow and broad wave-band frequency-generation capabilities also examined. Weapons applications using the former have so far required that they be in the same frequency band as the target system. This is not the case with wide-band systems, but the power delivered to the target tends to be much lower.
The RF weapon program was previously associated with the name "Virus," but this has likely changed
Illustration
The U.K.'s Taranis UCAV demonstrator program could lead to development of a platform capable of carrying directed-energy weaponry.
BAE SYSTEMS
Subject: Radio frequency; Weapons testing; Military technology; Research & development; R & D; Energy
Location: United Kingdom, UK
Classification: 9175: Western Europe; 8680: Transportation equipment industry; 5400: Research & development
Publication title: Aviation Week & Space Technology
Volume: 167
Issue: 8
Pages: 39
Publication year: 2007
Publication date: Aug 20, 2007
x116 Andre Gsponer : Fourth Generation Nuclear Weaspons: Military effectivenss and collateral effects.
2008
Fourth Generation Nuclear Weaspons: Military effectivenss and collateral effects.
Andre Gsponer
http://arxiv.org/abs/physics/0510071
Independent Scientific Research Institute
Box 30, CH1211
Geneva12, Switzerland
Version ISRI0503.17
February 2, 2008
Abstract
The paper begins with a general introduction and update to Fourth Generation Nuclear Weapons (FGNW), and then addresses some particularly important military aspects on which there has been only limited public discussion so far. These aspects concern the unique military characteristics of FGNWs which make them radically different from both nuclear weapons based on previous generation nuclearexplosives and from conventional weapons based on chemicalexplosives: yields in the 1 to 100 tons range, greatly enhanced coupling to targets, possibility to drive powerful shapedcharge jets and forged fragments, enhanced prompt radiation effects, reduced collateral damage and residual radioactivity, etc.
+++ page 3
First generation: 6 kg Pu ~= 10 kt yield at 10% efficiency
Fourth generation: 25 mg DT ~= 1 ton yield at 50% efficiency
+++ page 8
[A] two-stage H-bomb demonstrates that a powerful source of X-rays can be used to produce mechanical work, i.e., to strongly compress the material of the secondary. This leads to other possible applications, where the ablation pressure is used to accelerate a missile or a spacecraft (nuclear-driven rocket), or to squeeze a shape-dcharge liner (nuclear-driven plasma-jet).
+++ page 9
[T]hird generation nuclear weapons require a fission-explosive as trigger, which implies that their yield tends to be too high for battlefield uses, and that they necessarily produce large-scale radioactive pollution, etc.
As will be seen in the sequel of this paper, most third generation concepts can be reconsidered in the context of fourth generation nuclear weapons. This is because the suppression of the fission-explosive trigger, and the reliance on fusion rather than fission as the main source of yield in FGNWs, enable to envisage devices of much lower yield and much reduced radiological impact.
+++ page 11
There is no standard definition of fourth generation nuclear-weapons. Nevertheless, for the purpose of this paper, we may use either of the two definitions:
- "Nuclear explosive devices based on atomic and nuclear processes that are not restricted by the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT)," or
- "Nuclear explosive devices based on low-yield thermonuclear pellets triggered by compact non-fission
primaries."
The second definition recognizes the technical fact that radically new, but realistic, types of nuclear weapons will most probably use highly-compressed deuterium-tritium pellets as the main source of their explosive energy. This means that while fission was the main source of yield in the first three generations, the main source of yield in the fourth generation will be the fusion reaction...
+++ page 17-19
To ignite the pellet after compression, a different method is required because ignition has to be achieved on a much shorter timescale than compression. For example, while a 1 MJ energy laser pulse of a few nanosecond duration is suitable for compression, ignition may require a pulse of only 1 kJ energy, but of a duration several thousand times shorter, i.e., less than one picosecond. Thus, while high-energy lasers are needed for compression, high-power lasers are required for ignition.
+++ page 27-28
[S]ince the kinetic energy of the expanding materials of a nuclear bomb generally corresponds to a small fraction of the radiated energy, the immediate vicinity of a nuclear explosive is that of an extremely-intense pulsed-source of radiations. Depending on the type of the bomb, the dominant kinds of emitted radiations are as follows:
- Hot fission bomb: soft X-rays and some fission neutrons;
- H-bomb: soft X-rays and some fission and fusion neutrons;
- Pure fusion bomb: 14 MeV neutrons and soft X-rays;
- Pure isomer bomb: 0.1 to 5 MeV gamma-rays;
- Pure positron bomb: 0.511 MeV gamma-rays;
- Pure antiproton bomb: ~= 200 MeV pions and gamma-rays.
+++ page 28-30
In the case of nuclear explosives the situation is more complicated because the different kinds of radiations can have a variety of effects, especially if they are very penetrating, as is the case for high-energy neutrons and gamma-rays. The most important of these effects are as follows:
- Generate a fireball (in air or a material). This is primarily the effect of the soft X-rays
which have a relatively short mean-free path in any material, including air. The material will heat up and the resulting fireball will radiate longer wavelength electromagnetic energy, i.e., a heat wave leading
to various thermal effects.
- Launch a shockwave (in air or in a material). This is primarily the result of the expansion of the soft X-rays generated fireball into the surroundings, which launches a shock wave leading to blast effects.
- Heat the surface of a material. Hard X-rays and low-energy gamma-rays able to propagate over some distances in low-density intervening materials (e.g., air) will be absorbed at the surface of any high-density material.
- Ablate a material and produce a shock wave in it. If surface heating is sufficiently strong, the material will vaporize (i.e., "ablate") and by reaction (i.e., "rocket effect") a large pressure will be exerted on it, launching a shock-wave into the material.
- Accelerate or compress a material. If the ablation pressure is sufficiently strong, a material can be accelerated to high velocity by rocket-effect; and if the ablation pressure is simultaneously exerted on all sides, a material can be compressed to high-density as is the case of the secondary in a two-stage thermonuclear weapon.
- Transfer momentum to a material. Either directly through the effect of radiations, or indirectly by means of shock waves propagating through an intervening medium, momentum can be transferred to a material which can be directly accelerated to high velocity without being ablated.
- Heat the volume of a material. Penetrating high-energy radiations (neutrons, pions, or high-energy gamma-rays) will easily cross a low-density intervening medium such as air and deposit their energy deep into any high-density material. As a result, a substantial (i.e., centimeter to meter-thick) layer of a bomb-irradiated material can be brought to a temperature sufficiently high for it to melt, vaporize, or even explode.
- Energize a working material. A special case of volume heating is that in which a "working material" is intentionally placed near a nuclear explosive in order to heat it to high-temperature so that it can do mechanical work on other materials. This is the nuclear analog of a steam machine, in which
super-heated water (i.e., steam) is used to produce motion.
- Forge and project missiles. A superheated working material can be used to forge a material into a missile and project it to a large distance.
- Form and send high-velocity jets. A super-heated working material can be used to form and send high-velocity (plasma) jets to some distance.
This list calls for three remarks:
1. The above list includes only the primarily "mechanical" and "thermodynamical" effects of nuclear explosives. Important non-thermo-mechanical effects such as the production of an electromagnetic-pulse
affecting electronic equipments, and the prompt or delayed radiations affecting living bodies (and electronic equipments to some extent), can be considered as collateral effects in that perspective.
2. As was stressed in the introduction to this section, many physical processes (such as energy and momentum transfer, transformation of kinetic into internal energy, etc.) have to be simultaneous taken into account, so that none of the effects in the list are "pure effects" that would be fully independent
from the other effects.
3. Because they produce mainly blast and thermal effects, first and second generation nuclear weapons can basically be considered as gigantic conventional weapons � except of course for their radioactive fallout and other nuclearradiation effects.
+++ page 39-31
[C]onventional explosives, and first and second generation nuclear explosives, primarily couple their energy to the target by means of shock-waves propagating through an intervening medium: air, water, earth, rocks, etc. This means that the coupling of these weapons can be qualified as indirect, independently on whether the target is (relatively) close or distant from the point of
explosion.
In the case of fourth generation nuclear explosives, however, the coupling can be qualified as direct, unless the target is sufficiently far away from the point of explosion that the radiations are absorbed in the intervening medium before interactingwith the target. In otherwords, the fact that these weapons are primarily very intense sources of penetrating radiations means that they can produce direct
work on the target, and therefore induce a very different response than if the target was just hit by a shock wave.
+++ page 31
[W]hen a shock wave strikes a high-density material after propagating in a lower density medium (e.g., striking the ground after propagating through air) most of the energy in the shock wave is reflected, and only a small fraction of the energy of the initial shock wave is given to secondary shock waves propagating through the target material. Consequently, as is well known, indirect coupling by means of shock waves is very poor, because such waves are reflected at the boundaries between low and high-density materials. For example, for both conventional and current generation nuclear weapons, less than 10% of the energy striking a relatively heavy target (e.g., a main battletank, a bunker, or the ground) is actually coupled to it, even for explosions very close to the target, i.e., "surface bursts." As a matter of fact, for ideal (absolutely rigid) materials, incoming shock waves are fully reflected.
+++ page 32
Let us suppose that the yield froman idealized DT-based FGNWconsists of about
20% in soft X-rays and 80% in 14 MeV neutrons. Let us also take into account that relative to a surface at some distance from the point of explosion, 50% of each of these radiations will flow forwards, and 50% backwards.
If we suppose that this weapon has a yield in the range of a few tons, and is detonated in air at a relatively short distance from a target, say a few meters, most of the forwards going X-rays will reach the target where they will heat the surface, which may melt or vaporize up to the point of launching a shock into it. Because that shock is produced directly on the target, it will be much stronger that if it have produced indirectly by means of a shock wave propagating through air, as well as much stronger that if it would have been produced by the expanding fireball hitting the target.
The main effect, however, will come from the neutrons. Not just because they correspond to a circa five times larger source of energy, but because neutrons can easily penetrate inside any material where they can deposit their energy locally and produce volume heating of the material. This means that the coupling can be very high, since there is little reflection in comparison to shock waves, and little losses in comparison to surface effects where part of the absorbed energy is back-radiated or lost as kinetic energy of the ablated material.
+++ page 32-35
As an example, Fig. 5 shows the neutron heating effect of a 1 ton equivalent point source of 14 MeV neutrons detonated 1 meter away from a thick slab of polyethylene (CH2), taken as representative (from the neutron-heating point of view) of the light materials used in modern multi-layered tank armor. As can
be seen, heating is maximum at about 2 cm below the surface, and then decays exponentially with a half-length of about 10 cm. Therefore, the energy deposited in the first 10 cm has a density of about 0.5 kJ/cm3, more than enough to vaporize thematerial. Moreover, if the point of explosion is put at 30 cm rather than 100 cm, or if the explosive yield is increased from 1 to 10 tons, the energy density would become comparable to that of the detonation products of a powerful chemical explosives.
The same neutron heating calculation can be repeated with other materials: earth, concrete, aluminum, iron, uranium, etc. The result is that the magnitudes, as well as the distributions with depth, are generally rather similar to those of lightweight materials such as CH2, despite that in heavier materials the nuclear interactions of neutrons are very different from those in lightweight materials (i.e., much less elastic scattering, but more inelastic scattering instead). It is only for very heavy material, or in materials such as uranium where 14 MeV neutrons can induce fission, that the magnitude of energy deposition can be larger by a factor of two or more.
To summarize, and to phrase the results in a simplified form because what matters here are orders of magnitude rather than high precision, one has found that:
- Because most of the energy of a DT-based FGNW is in the form of highly penetrating neutrons, almost all of the forwards going energy is coupled into any target located less than a few meters away from the point of detonation. This implies a coupling coefficient of almost 50%, that is ten times higher than for any conventional or previous generation nuclear weapons;
- The combined surface and volume heating effects of a 1 ton FGNW detonated 1 meter away from any solid target leads to an energy deposition of about 1 kJ/cm3 in the first 10 cm of any material.
To make some further simplifications, this means that the energy deposition by 14 MeV neutrons is comparable to that of myriads of "femto" kinetic-energy or shaped-charge penetrators, and that while a 1 ton chemical explosion 1 m away from a 10 cm thick steel plate will barely damage it, a 1 ton FGNW explosion at the same 1 m distance will burn a 1 m2 hole through it.
+++ page 41
The mechanical and thermal effects of conventional and nuclear weapons are
well-known. For instance, their scaling laws with explosive yield are
simple power laws: direct proportionally (�proportional Y -1) for thermal effects, and third-root dependence (�proportional Y -1/3) for blast overpressure. The factor of three difference in the exponent of these powerlaws makes that, in comparison to blast effects, thermal effects are generally negligible in conventional explosives, but dominant inMt-yield nuclear explosives.which are in fact gigantic incendiary bombs [60]. This means that for kt-yield nuclear weapons, and FGNWs with yields between 1 and 100 tons, both effects should be taken into consideration.
A first significant difference between DT-based FGNWs and all other types of explosives is that up to 80% of the yield is in form of high-energy neutrons, so that only about 20% of the total yield contribute directly to heat and blast effects. With proper scaling, this factor of 5 difference means that a FGNW will have a factor of 5 smaller incendiary effect, and a factor �{cubeRoot(5)} = 1.7 reduced blast effect -- provided [one] assumes that the energy of the neutrons will be absorbed either in the intended target, or else in a large volume of air that will not be sufficiently heated to significantly contribute to the heat and blast waves. One can therefore conclude that for a given total yield, FGNWs will have somewhat reduced collateral effects in terms of heat and blast.
+++ page 42
However, direct-coupling to a finite-size target has a 1/(r2) dependence on the distance r between the point of explosion and the surface of the target, and this distance should be on the order of a few meters at most for a circa 1 ton FGNW to be effective. This requires truly high accuracy in delivery, and a corresponding accuracy in the knowledge of the target coordinates.
Finally, as with all types of explosiveweapons, debris will be sent at random to large distances from the target. But since the kinetic energy available for sending these debris is directly related to blast energy, this collateral effect should be proportionally reduced in FGNWs.
+++ page 42-43
One can therefore find the distance below which the "instant permanent incapacitation" is close or equal to 100% :
1 ton FGNW: more than 10�000 rad below 100 m,
> 24 oC body temperature rise,
> 99% lethal within 1 hour.
And the distance beyond which the probability of survival is higher than 50% :
1 ton FGNW: less than 300 rad beyond 300 m,
1 oC body temperature rise,
< 50% lethal within 1 month.
In these two boxes, the instantaneous full-body temperature rise produced by the given dose is calculate in order to provide an intuitive explanation for the prompt biological effect of high-doses of radiations. As can easily be understood, an instantaneous full-body temperature rise from 37 to about 60oC will have a very big impact on physiology, which explains the immediate loss of consciousness and nearly instantaneous death. On the other hand, a 1oC temperature rise will not have such a strong physiological effect, and death will be due to radiation sickness, which can be medically treated to some extent.
+++ page 44-45
[T]he comparison is useful to highlight the considerably smaller radioactive burden induced by FGNWs relative to the previous generations of nuclear weapons. It can also be inferred that:
- Tritium dispersal and induced ground-radioactivity will to a large extent not impair further military action;
- Just as it was the case with the use of depleted-uranium weapons, it will be possible for the proponents of FGNWs to argue that the radiological burden due to their use could be in some way tolerable;
- Many political leaders and large fractions of the public opinion may not object to the long term radiological impact of FGNWs;
- In any case, with a tritium content of about 15 mg per ton explosive equivalent, there will be 15 kg of tritium in an arsenal equivalent to one million 1-ton-FGNWs, that is about the same tritium inventory as in one single full-size thermonuclear reactor. Acceptance of civilian fusion power will therefore be linked to that of FGNWS.
x117 Committee on a Scientific Assessment : Scientific Assessment of High-Power Free-Electron Laser Technology
2009
Scientific Assessment of High-Power Free-Electron Laser Technology, Committee on a Scientific Assessment of Free-Electron Laser Technology for Naval Applications, the Natinoal Academies Press, Washington, DC 20001, 2009.
x118 Stephen O. Dean : Sear for the Ultimate Energy Source: A History of the U.S. Fusion Energy Program
2013
Sear for the Ultimate Energy Source: A History of the U.S. Fusion Energy Program by Stephen O. Dean, 2013,
x119 John forge : Designed to Kill: The Case Against Weapons Research
2013
Designed to Kill: The Case Against Weapons Research, John forge, 2013.
x120 Peter Schm�ser : Free-Electron Lasers in the Ultraviolet and X-Ray Regime: Physical Principles, Experimental Results, Technical Realization
2014
Free-Electron Lasers in the Ultraviolet and X-Ray Regime: Physical Principles, Experimental Results,
Technical Realization by Peter Schm�ser, Martin Dohlus, J�rg Rossbach, Christopher Behrens. Springer Tracts in Modern Physics, Volume 258, 2014.
x121 HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES : FUSION: THE WORLD�S MOST COMPLEX ENERGY PROJECT
2014
FUSION: THE WORLD�S MOST COMPLEX ENERGY PROJECT
HEARING BEFORE THE SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENERGY COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
JULY 11, 2014
Serial No. 113�85
x122 Steven Lambakis : On the Edge of Earth: The Future of American Space Power
2014-04
{mcb: This references an updated version of the book lauded in 09 by Peter Hays.}
| web pdf | $42.00 | 978-0-8131-4577-8 |
| epub | $42.00 | 978-0-8131-4578-5 |
| cloth | $42.00 | 978-0-8131-2198-7 |
The United States has long exploited Earth�s orbits to enhance security, generate wealth, and solidify its position as a world leader. America�s ambivalence toward military activities in space, however, has the potential to undermine our future security. Many in Washington possess a peculiar regard for space and warfare. Some perceive space as a place to defend and fight for America�s vital interests. Others�whose voices are frequently dominant and manifested in public rhetoric, funded defense programs, international diplomacy, and treaty commitments�look upon space as a preserve not to be despoiled by earthly strife.
After forty years of discussion, the debate over America�s role in space rages on. In light of the steady increase in international satellite activity for commercial and military purposes, American�s vacillation on this issue could begin to pose a real threat to our national security. Steven Lambakis argues that this policy dysfunction will eventually manifest itself in diminished international political leverage, the forfeiture of technological advances, and the squandering of valuable financial resources. Lambakis reviews key political, military, and business developments in space over the past four decades. Emphasizing that we should not take our unobstructed and unlimited access to space for granted, he identifies potential space threats and policy flaws and proposes steps to meet national security demands for the twenty-first century.
Provides a wealth of details on a wide range of factors that contribute to space power. -- Air & Space Power Journal
Ought to be read by anyone interested in understanding the coming debate over space weapons. . . . Hands down the best available resource for understanding that debate. -- Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
Interesting and provocative. . . . Recommended for anyone interested in space policy and national security affairs. -- Choice
Provides a much needed strategic analysis that is refreshing, intelligent, and imaginative. . . .Successfully distills the essence of American space power into a manageable whole, blending sophisticated analysis with command of technical and scientific issues. -- Comparative Strategy
Will trigger public debate, generate controversy and add creatively to the policy debate. An exceptionally good job of clarifying issues and meeting the hard questions head-on. -- John D. Stempel
Offers not only skilful advocacy for the development of American space power, but also a substantial body of information upon which future strategic analyses can be built. -- Survival
A guide to the current situation and a set of recommendations worth heeding. -- Washington Times
On the Edge of Earth:The Future of American Space Power . . . reflects on America�s accomplishments in space and its strategic importance to our national security. -- CSAF Quarterly
It is one of the most important geopolitical books published in later years. -- globalcivilwar.wordpress.com
Part 2: Important Nuclear DEW References
x123 George W. Ullrich : Summary of the DNA SMES Development Program
1995
IEEE Transactions on Applied Superconductivity, Vol. 5, No. 2, June 1995
Abstract
In 1987 the Strategic Defense Initiative Organization (SDIO) initiated a program at the Defense Nuclear Agency (DNA) to develop Superconducting Magnetic Energy Storage (SMES) as a short-duration, highpower source for a Free-Electron LaseyDirected Energy Weapon. SMES was also recognized as being able to fulfill the important civilian electric utility application of diurnal storage. In 1986 the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) had proposed an Engineering Test Model (ETM) as the logical next step in SMES development. Since the military and civilian requirements for energy storage were similar, the SMES ETM development was proposed as a dual-use program from the outset. DNA was selected to manage the program because of its experience managing the development of hih-power nuclear-effects simulators. This paper kimmarizes the management results and conclusions of the two-phase SMES-ETM development program.
I. Introduction
In 1987, the Defense Nuclear Agency (DNA) was tasked by the Department of Defense's @OD) Strategic Defense Initiative Organization (SDI0)-recently renamed the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization-to undertake management of a dual-use (military-electric utilities) program to design, construct, and demonstrate a 20 MWh Superconducting Magnetic Energy Storage (SMES) Engineering Test Model (ETM). This SMES-ETM was to demonstrate a dual-use technology that could be scaled to full-size SMES plants storing 1000 to 5000 MWh. At this capacity, the SMES plants were to provide power for the military ground-based, free-electron laser (GBFEL) directed-energy weapon under development by the SDIO. For electric utilities, these large SMES plants were to provide diurnal storage of electric energy to level the daynight cycle of electricity usage. The 20 MWh SMES-ETM was to demonstrate, among other things, the technology required for earth support to withstand the large radial Lorentz bursting forces in the charged magnet. Earth support, sometimes referred to as warm support, was thought to be necessary for large SMES plants to be economically competitive for electric utility use.
SDIO asked DNA to manage the SMES-ETM program owing to a cadre of management and technical expertise which DNA had developed as a consequence of more than a decade of expeiience in developing large, one-of-a-kind, high-power bremsstrahlung machines whose x-ray spectra provided simulations of those emitted in the detonation of a nuclear weapon. DNA had a responsibility to the DoD to provide such simulations to test and ensure the survivability and operational capability of equipment used by U.S. military forces. DNA had no prior experience with either superconductivity or with large magnets.
DNA began its SMES-ETM program with perceptions formed from the contemporary views of, and writings on, this emerging technology. Here we review this history, describe DNA's SMES-ETM program, and relate its results.
Viewed most simply, a SMES plant consists of a currentcarrying superconducting coil held at temperatures low enough to maintain its superconductivity, together with an associated power conditioning system (PCS) necessary to establish an appropriate interface with a power source and with the system being served.
...
V. Conclusions
DNA has conducted successfully what we believe to be the largest, most complex, designated dual-use program yet undertaken by the U.S. Government.
For the military, we have now introduced, in a program with the U.S. Air Force, the off-the-shelf very small SMES (so-called micro-SMES; about 1 MJ in storage capacity) for local power quality enhancement.
For the electric utility industry, we have delivered a SMES design that is now ready for commercial exploitation. We have, thereby, provided to the U.S. an important technical edge in what is certain to be an expanding, international marketplace.
x124 Fulghum, David A : Airborne Laser Aimed At New Defense Roles
1998-10
Abstract:
The successful test of a TRW-designed laser recently has opened the door for a valid demonstration of the device's usefulness as a weapon against ballistic missiles. Less obviously, this test will allow the airborne laser to begin taking on crucial new missions. A study and cost analysis of collateral missions for the airborne laser will not be ready for presentation to senior Air Force Combat Command officials until spring 1999. The airborne laser aircraft is to begin a test program in 2001.
Full text:
The successful test of a TRW-designed laser recently has opened the door for a valid demonstration of the device's usefulness as a weapon against ballistic missiles.
Less obviously, this test will allow the airborne laser to begin taking on crucial new missions.
At the top of the list of potential missions is the airborne laser's use as a defense against cruise missiles and as a passive, long-range optical reconnaissance platform.
``The technology is ready,'' said Paul Shennum, Boeing's vice president for the ABL joint program office. ``We're getting to the point now where quite a few of these things appear really feasible,'' agreed Air Force Col. Michael Booen, the airborne laser program director. ``We're still looking at cruise missile defense. That looks promising. [Moreover, some of the adjunct missions] are relatively cheap.''
The ability to produce the power they need from a laser module almost six years before the YAL-1A is to become operational has let program officials begin to look more seriously at missions for the airborne laser other than intercepting theater ballistic missiles (AW&ST Sept. 14, p. 22).
A study and cost analysis of collateral missions for the airborne laser will not be ready for presentation to senior Air Combat Command officials until spring 1999, program officials said.
``This [laser's success] is going to break the door down for directed energy weapons,'' Booen said. ``In general, there are no radical changes we have to make [to conduct adjunct missions]. None of them are very expensive. Sometimes it involves more software or more optics. That could mean more optical elements so we can use the sensors in different ways, [or] possibly some small additions to the optics [additional sensors]. That's what we've got to talk to Air Combat Command about. If we needed the additional optics, would they be willing to put those on the jet?''
Initial indications are that five areas identified last year are still valid and may cost less than had earlier been thought. These are:
-- Imaging and reconnaissance using the 1.5-meter optical telescope to find and identify air and ground targets and formations, observe traffic and conduct battle damage assessment at ranges of several hundred miles.
-- Protection of high-value aircraft such as AWACS, Joint-STARS and itself by destroying anti-aircraft missiles launched from the ground or other aircraft.
-- Suppression of air defenses by combining target data from various intelligence sources to attack enemy missiles while they are still on the ground as well as the radars that control them.
-- Command and control through searching the battlefield for infrared signatures to cue other weapons and to provide a command with a first look at theater threats.
-- Defense against low-flying cruise missiles even a year ago was thought too difficult a task for the YAL-1A, but indications are that the Air Force is reassessing the flying laser's capabilities against those small, sometimes stealthy, targets.
Cruise missile defense has looked more promising as ``we've gotten into more of the details,'' Booen said. ``Obviously we can shoot the high fliers a little bit further than we can shoot the low fliers because they look more like the missiles we were designed to [attack],'' he said. ``[But, now] we're looking at the whole envelope.''
Booen said program officials look at ABL as part of the family of systems designed for theater missile defense which encompasses both cruise and ballistic weapons.
``We've tried to design in the connectivity between us and Joint-STARS and AWACS,'' Booen said. ``We have infrared and optical sensors on board so that data is what we'll be sending down JTIDS and Link 16 [which are the primary digital communications links].''
Program officials refused to comment on whether the YAL-1A's infrared sensors would be sensitive enough to pick up the small exhaust signatures of cruise missiles, many of which are expected to have stealthy designs or radar absorbing coatings.
Among these potential missions, cruise missile defense could move to a fast track. The YAL-1A may take its place as one of the pillars of the classified cruise missile defense plan that includes the E-3 AWACS, E-8 Joint-STARS and an upgraded version of the AIM-120 Amraam air-to-air missile (AW&ST Aug. 24, p. 22).
The cruise missile defense system is scheduled to be demonstrated in 2004-05 and operational by 2010 which fits well with the YAL-1A's expected operational debut around 2005. Stealthy cruise missiles are expected to be on the world market about the same time.
As the basic plan now stands, the AWACS' long-range S-band radar would spot the incoming cruise missile and cue an Amraam-carrying fighter to shoot its missile into a certain point in the sky, referred to as a basket.
The AWACS would also digitally tell the Joint-STARS' big, high-definition X-band radar where to look to better target and identify the cruise missile. The Joint-STARS also would direct the air-to-air weapon until its own sensors could see the cruise missile and complete the intercept.
The TRW-designed laser is to be built as a module that can be stacked in the Air Force's YAL-1A airborne laser, a specialized Boeing 747-400F. The initial test of the multihundred-kw. chemical oxygen iodine laser was conducted on June 3. The test program for the flight-weighted laser module was completed in late August at TRW's Capistrano Test Site near San Clemente, Calif.
The ability of the Boeing, TRW, Lockheed Martin team to go from ``first light'' with the laser through completion of a 26-test program in less than three months is an indicator of the overall technical health of the project, Booen said. The system's critical design review is scheduled for July 1999.
THE AIRBORNE LASER aircraft is to begin a test program in 2001 at White Sands Missile Range, N.M., involving the launch of a variety of missiles to verify the surveillance and command and control system, Booen said.
The YAL-1A's first attempt to destroy a missile in flight with a laser is to be made in 2002 with the target to be a surrogate theater ballistic missile fired over the Pacific from Vandenberg AFB, Calif. As currently planned, the program is to produce seven laser-armed aircraft.
Photograph
Photograph: Photograph: The successful test of the ABL's laser opens many new possibilities for employment of the airborne weapon such as the destruction of cruise missiles and suppression of enemy air defenses.
Subject: Lasers; Military weapons; Missiles; Product testing; Defense
Location: US
Classification: 9190: US; 8650: Electrical, electronics, instrumentation industries; 8680: Transportation equipment industry; 7500: Product planning & development
Publication title: Aviation Week & Space Technology
Volume: 149
Issue: 14
Pages: 111
Number of pages: 0
Publication year: 1998
Publication date: October 5, 1998
x125 Andre Gsponer and Jean-Pierre Hurni : Fourth Generation Nuclear Weapons: The Physical Principles Of Thermonuclear Explosives, Inertial Confinement Fusion, And The Quest For Fourth Generation Nuclear Weapons
1999
Fifth Edition: March 1999
Review Comments:
Andre Gsponer and Jean-Pierre Hurni provide an extremely valuable service by issuing this report. The report consists of two principal components
- a very informative overview of first and second generation nuclear weapon technology (that is, pure fission devices, boosted fission devices, and staged thermonuclear designs);
and
- an excellent summary of current research directions in weapons-applicable physics, such as the U.S. Science-Based Stockpile Program, and the prospects of developing a new generation of fourth generation nuclear weapons.
[It should be noted in passing that third generation nuclear weapons include such devices as hot X-ray and enhanced neutron emission ("neutron bomb") thermonuclear weapons, specialized devices that were never procured in large numbers, and have been largely abandoned as of little military interest.]
Of special interest is their excellent and extensive bibliography that brings together many references regarding weapon history, basic weapon physics, and fourth generation weapon concepts. To people interested in these subjects the bibliography aloneis easily worth the modest cost of the publication.
--- Carey Sublette
The Physical Principles Of Thermonuclear Explosives, Inertial Confinement Fusion, And The Quest For Fourth Generation Nuclear Weapons
Executive Summary
This report is an assessment of the prospect of developing new (i.e., fourth generation) nuclear weapons in the context of the recently agreed Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) and of the current moratorium on nuclear testing in effect in all nuclear-weapon States.
The first chapter is a primer on thermonuclear weapons based on a scientific understanding of the physical principles of existing nuclear weapons and on the results of ISRINEX, a simple thermonuclear explosion simulation program specially developed for independent disarmament experts. Using this insight, it is shown that the construction of hydrogen bombs is in fact much less difficult than is generally assumed. Using present-day nuclear and computer technology, almost any modern industrial country could, in principle, build such a weapon. Similarly, it is shown that "boosting," i.e., the technique of using a small amount of tritium to enhance the performance of a fission bomb, is also much easier than generally assumed. In particular, using this technique, building highly efficient and reliable atomic weapons using reactor-grade plutonium is straightforward. Moreover, independently of the type of fissile material used, the construction of "simple" and "deliverable" tritium-boosted nuclear weapons can be easier than the construction of primitive Hiroshima or Nagasaki type atomic bombs.
The second chapter is a technical and legal analysis of the nuclear tests which are allowed by the CTBT: microexplosions and subcritical experiments. It is found that this treaty explicitly forbids only nuclear explosions in which a divergent fission chain reaction takes place. Therefore, it is possible to develop new types of fission explosives in which subcritical fission-burn is the yield generation mechanism. Similarly, new kinds of fusion explosives, in which the trigger is no longer a fission explosive, are legal under the CTBT. %\smallskip
The third chapter is devoted to the military applications of inertial confinement fusion (ICF) and other pulsed-power technologies. The capabilities of modern laboratory simulation techniques for weapons physics research are shown to significantly overlap with those of underground nuclear testing. Moreover, these technologies are found to enable the study of a number of physical processes --- especially electromagnetic energy cumulation techniques and advanced nuclear processes that are not restricted by existing arms control treaties --- which are useful in refining existing nuclear weapons and essential in developing fourth generation nuclear weapons. %\smallskip
The fourth chapter is devoted to fourth generation nuclear weapons. These new fission or fusion explosives could have yields in the range of 1 to 100 ton equivalents of TNT, i.e., in the gap which today separates conventional weapons from nuclear weapons. These relatively low-yield nuclear explosives would not qualify as weapons of \emph{mass} destruction. Seven physical processes which could be used to make such low-yield nuclear weapons, or to make compact non-fission triggers for large scale thermonuclear explosions, are investigated in detail: subcritical fission-burn, magnetic compression, superheavy elements, antimatter, nuclear isomers, metallic hydrogen and superlasers (i.e., ultrapowerful lasers with intensities higher than 1019 W/cm2).
The conclusion stresses that considerable research is underway in all five nuclear-weapon States (as well as in several other major industrialized States such as Germany and Japan) on ICF and on many physical processes that provide the scientific basis necessary to develop fourth generation nuclear weapons. Substantial progress has been made in the past few years on all these processes, and the construction of large ICF microexplosion facilities in both nuclear-weapon and non-nuclear-weapon States is giving the arms race a fresh boost. The world runs the risk that certain countries will equip themselves directly with fourth generation nuclear weapons, bypassing the acquisition of previous generations of nuclear weapons.
In this context, the invention of the superlaser, which enabled a factor of one million increase in the instantaneous power of tabletop lasers, is possibly the most significant advance in military technology of the past ten years. This increase is of the same magnitude as the factor of one million difference in energy density between chemical and nuclear energy.
A major arms control problem of fourth generation nuclear weapons is that their development is very closely related to pure scientific research. The chief purpose of the CTBT is to freeze the technology of nuclear weapons as a first step toward general and complete nuclear disarmament. In order to achieve that, it is necessary to implement effective measures of preventive arms control, such as international legally binding restrictions in all relevant areas of research and development, whether they are claimed to be for military or civilian purposes.
ISBN: 3-933071-02-X. 183 pages, 25 figures, 4 tables, 528 references (Fifth corrected and expanded version of a report first distributed at the 1997 INESAP Conference, Shanghai, China, September 8--10, 1997.)
To Order:
Orders should be sent to: IANUS, ianus@hrzpub.tu-darmstadt.de, or by fax to No.\ (+49) 6151-16-6309. Price: $20 + postage.
Copyright, 1997, 1998, 1999. INESAP, c/o IANUS, Darmstadt University of Technology, Germany. All rights reserved. ISBN: 3-933071-02-X.
x126 Smith, Bruce a; Wall, Robert : Thel Laser Kills Short-Range Missile
2000-06
Abstract:
Destruction of a rocket in-flight by a high-energy laser system has demonstrated that an operational-type directed energy weapon can defeat a short-range ballistic rocket attack, according to program officials.
Full text:
Destruction of a rocket in flight by a high-energy laser system has demonstrated that an operational-type directed energy weapon can defeat a short-range ballistic rocket attack, according to program officials.
The Katyusha rocket was destroyed on June 6 at White Sands Missile Range, N.M., when the U.S. Army's Tactical High Energy Laser/Advanced Concept Technology Demonstrator (Thel/Actd) detonated the vehicle's high-explosive warhead.
THE INTERCEPT was the first kill of a Katyusha rocket by a deployable-type high-energy laser weapon, and the first attempt by the Thel system to destroy a rocket, according to program officials.
The test could serve as a first step in bolstering air defense against attacks by rockets such as the Katyusha, with Mach 3 velocity and a flight time of only 15-40 sec.
The test could also boost interest in development of laser weapon systems which are smaller and more mobile than Thel, which includes several transportable, cargo container-sized structures mounted on concrete pads.
In the near-term, the successful demonstration will lead to more complex and aggressive testing of the Thel system, officials said.
The rocket was fired on a 15-km. trajectory and destroyed by Thel at a range of a few kilometers. ``It was the very first time we tried to put the high [laser] power on a Katyusha for long-enough duration to kill it, and we blew it up,'' said Richard Bradshaw, directed energy program manager for the Army Space and Missile Defense Command.
How long the laser has to be focused on the Katyusha to explode it is classified, but Bradshaw said the engagement took place ``within the tactical timelines we need to meet our requirements.''
The Thel system was developed by a TRW-led team of U.S. and Israeli contractors for the U.S. Army and the Israel Ministry of Defense. The design of the deuterium fluoride chemical laser weapon was driven in part by Israel's requirements for an air defense system to protect communities located along the country's northern border from terrorist rocket attacks. The Katyusha rocket for the test was supplied by the Israeli government.
The rocket was launched at 3:48 p.m. EDT in desert terrain near the Army's High Energy Laser Systems Test Facility. The launcher was located 10-15 km. south of the position of the Thel system.
The integrated fire control radar acquired the incoming Katyusha shortly after launch, determined the trajectory and automatically fed data to the command and control system. Command and control identified the target and directed the optical pointer/tracker subsystem to search with sensors mounted on the beam director. A forward looking infrared (Flir) system is used for coarse-tracking.
THE SYSTEM THEN TRANSITIONED to a fine-tracking mode using a lower-power level solid state laser to illuminate the target. The system uses full aperture of the beam director for precision tracking on the vehicle's warhead, ultimately sending the laser beam out through the pointer-tracker. The warhead of the 10-ft. long rocket was heated by the laser beam and detonated.
Tom Romesser, TRW vice president and deputy general manager of laser programs, said the Katyusha's solid rocket motor provides 2-3 sec. of thrust enabling the vehicle to typically achieve an initial launch velocity of about a kilometer per second.
PROGRAM OFFICIALS have aimed at concentrating the energy of the laser beam on the warhead of the rocket. ``The Katyushas are a 122-mm.-dia. rocket,'' Romesser said. ``Our objective is to focus our energy so that it impacts the rocket and we deposit all of our energy on the rocket.''
The next step in the program is preparing for a multiple rocket shoot-down in about 6-8 weeks. Between now and then, the Army and TRW will analyze data from about 80 sensors that observed last week's test.
Bradshaw said some configuration changes are possible, but that no obvious adjustments are required as a result of last week's test. Initially, the Army plans to launch multiple rockets on a similar trajectory, which should ease the ability to detect and engage the targets.
Eventually, Thel was supposed to be deployed to Israel to protect the country's northern border against Hezbollah Katyusha attacks from southern Lebanon. But there is some discussion within the Pentagon about whether that move will take place. The Pentagon's director for research and development, Hans Mark, is interested in keeping the system in the U.S. for testing. In the meantime, Israel and the U.S. are working on an agreement to jointly develop a smaller, mobile, more tactically useful version of the laser-system.
The successful intercept has been slow in coming. The Army and Israel signed an agreement in 1996 to develop the system as a quick response capability. However, along the way the development slowed several times because of technical difficulties.
Bradshaw acknowledged that integrating the different Thel components at times took longer than first expected. However, he added, the development could have been even slower if TRW hadn't given its engineers at lower levels a lot of authority to explore problems and come up with fixes.
Army officials also are eager to point out that the Thel success has broader implications for directed energy weapons. ``This compelling demonstration of Thel's defensive capability proves that directed energy weapon systems have the potential to play a significant role in defending U.S. national security interests worldwide.''
Photograph
Photograph: Ten-ft.-long Katyusha ballistic rocket was destroyed at White Sands Missile Range when Thel high-energy laser beam detonated the high-explosive warhead.
Subject: Lasers; Missiles; Research & development; R & D; National security
Location: United States, US
Classification: 8680: Transportation equipment industry; 9190: United States; 5400: Research & development; 9000: Short article
Publication title: Aviation Week & Space Technology
Volume: 152
Issue: 24
Pages: 33
Number of pages: 0
Publication year: 2000
Publication date: June 12, 2000
x127 Phillips, Edward H; Fulghum, David a : JSF Studied As Potential Jamming, Laser Platform
2000-07
Abstract:
Lockheed Martin is studying special derivatives of its Joint Strike Fighter candidate for special mission applications that center on electronic attack and the use of directive-energy weapons. These initiatives are drawing serious interest from the U.S. Defense Department and the UK's Ministry of Defense, according to Lockheed Martin officials. A key tactical advantage of a joint strike fighter configured for electronic attack would be its ability to accompany a strike force, jamming enemy radars and communications.
Full text:
Lockheed Martin is studying special derivatives of its Joint Strike Fighter candidate for special mission applications that center on electronic attack and the use of directed-energy weapons.
These initiatives are drawing serious interest from the U.S. Defense Dept. and the U.K.'s Ministry of Defense, according to Lockheed Martin officials. If the company's JSF team wins the engineering and manufacturing development contract scheduled to be awarded in 2001, these programs would accelerate to meet JSF deployment tentatively set for 2008. Northrop Grumman and BAE Systems are also members of the team.
A key tactical advantage of a JSF configured for electronic attack would be its ability to accompany a strike force, jamming enemy radars and communications as the flight sweeps through an area at high speed and at high or low altitudes, said Harold W. Blot. He is vice president and deputy program manager for Lockheed Martin's JSF initiative. The JSF's electronic warfare suite would be able to locate, identify, prioritize and jam a variety of ground-based electronic threats, according to Blot.
David L. Jeffreys, acting manager of growth and derivatives for the company's JSF program, said the airplane is ``a natural fit'' for the electronic attack mission because of its long range, reduced radar signature, and the capability to produce a significant amount of electrical energy to power an array of specialized equipment. These include an airborne laser or packages designed to jam enemy radars and communications.
The 181-cu.-ft. cavity used to house the lift fan for the short takeoff and vertical landing (STOVL) version could accommodate electronics, reconnaissance cameras or fuel. For example, an additional 3,800 lb. of fuel could be carried in the compartment that would increase the airplane's combat radius of 700 naut. mi. by another 190 naut. mi., Jeffreys said.
THE INPUT SHAFT from the Pratt & Whitney engine used to propel the JSF and operate the lift fan could be modified to drive a generator producing megawatts of energy to power a directed-energy weapon, he said. Lockheed Martin has consulted with various manufacturers of lasers to determine if the 50-in.-dia. cavity and 35,000 shp. available from the engine would be adequate to operate a laser. The answer was ``yes, but only if the airplane flies at altitudes above 50,000 ft. and engaged air-to-air or air-to-space targets,'' the analysts said. Operating a laser at lower altitudes would significantly weaken the weapon's energy, requiring the aircraft to get too close to its target to achieve destruction. Such missions probably would be assigned to cruise missiles carrying high-powered microwave weapons, Blot said.
Potential targets for an airborne laser include aircraft, cruise missiles, artillery rockets and possibly spacecraft. Disabling communications or surveillance satellites in low-Earth orbit, however, would require changes to existing international treaties. ``Installing a laser on a tactical airplane is very challenging, especially from a systems integration standpoint, but our studies indicate that it can be done,'' Jeffreys said. Although engineers still have many details to work out for a laser-equipped JSF, ``we have received substantial interest from the customer community'' for such an aircraft, he said.
In addition, the U.S. Marine Corps is ``very interested in JSF as an electronic attack platform'' because STOVL versions for the Marines could replace the AV-8B Harrier II, EA-6B Prowler and F/A-18 Hornet with one airplane, said Don A. Beaufait, manager of Marine Corps JSF business development for Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Co. The U.S. Air Force views a modified version of the conventional takeoff and landing version (CTOL) JSF as a way to regain jamming capability lost with retirement of the EF-111 Raven.
The JSF's stealth characteristics, coupled with its Advanced Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) radar/antenna technologies and internal jamming packages, would make the airplane an effective electronic attack platform, according to Beaufait. Unlike the Prowler, it could penetrate much closer to the target, jamming it more effectively. The JSF's software would analyze the acquisition cycle of an antiaircraft radar and jam it occasionally to force the target-acquisition cycle to start again.
Standoff was a factor in the loss of an F-117A near Belgrade during the Kosovo campaign when an EA-6B was forced to remain nearly 100 mi. away to avoid antiaircraft missiles. As a result, enemy radar was not jammed effectively. Although the JSF's AESA will have limited jamming capability against another aircraft's radar and communications systems, an additional antenna could be mounted in a conformal radome and emit powerful, narrow beams that would be difficult to detect, Jeffreys said. The JSF's ASEA comprises several hundred transmitter/receiver elements that can each be simultaneously assigned a different task such as communications, jamming or target search.
The company also is studying a two-seat JSF version. Mission radius would be reduced by 75 mi. Although modifying the Air Force CTOL and Navy CV versions to accept a second cockpit would not be difficult, stretching the STOVL airplane would present more problems because of the lift fan bay. Although analysis by Lockheed Martin JSF team member BAE Systems indicates a two-seat STOVL aircraft is feasible, ``there are important considerations, including aerodynamics and weight and balance issues,'' Beaufait said.
Weapons bays for Air Force and Navy aircraft feature 175 cu. ft. that could accept mission pallets such as electronics or reconnaissance packages. Lockheed Martin also is designing a conformal, centerline-mounted pod for the Marine Corps' JSF to house the Boeing Advanced 27-mm. Aircraft Cannon. The installation would increase drag slightly compared with the standard JSF.
Another study centers on using optional, interchangeable weapons bay doors to allow the JSF to carry a wide array of bombs and other weapons. Larger doors would allow carriage of 2,000-lb.-class weapons and would be designed to operate at supersonic speeds, Jeffreys said. Engineers also are studying the use of smaller weapons such as 100-250-lb. bombs, and multimode, radar-killing missiles that are more effective than existing Harm weapons.
Illustration
Illustration: Graph: Two-Seat JSF Versions
Straightforward Adaptation for Two-Seat CTOL and CV Versions
-- Second Seat Occupies Part of Lift Fan Bay
-- Additional Fuel/Avionics Volume Still Available
Side-Looking EA Apertures Could Be Mounted Internally,
Carried in Weapons Bay Packages or in Centerline Pod
Subject: Military aircraft; Research & development; R & D; Electronic warfare; Radar systems
Location: United States, US
Company / organization: Name: Lockheed Martin Corp; Ticker: LMT; NAICS: 334290, 212319, 336411, 336413, 336414
Classification: 8680: Transportation equipment industry; 9190: United States; 5400: Research & development
Publication title: Aviation Week & Space Technology
Volume: 153
Issue: 2
Pages: 33-34
Number of pages: 0
Publication year: 2000
Publication date: July 10, 2000
x128 Barry Watts : The Military Use of Space: A Diagnoistic Assessment
2001-02
Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (http://www.csbaonline.org), 1730 Rhode Island Avenue NW, Suite 912, Washington, D.C. 20036, 2001, 130 pages.
Directed-energy or energy-to-target weapons, by comparison, use particle or electromagnetic beams to transfer destructive energy directly to their targets.333
The amount of energy that directed-energy weapons need to deliver at the target depends on the coupling between the weapon�s energy and the target.350 Factors affecting the efficiency of this coupling include the target�s materials, configuration and orientation to the beam, as well as the type of energy transmitted. Laser energy interacts with the surface of the target, whereas highenergy particles are able to penetrate somewhat deeper.351 The material used for the target�s skin (aluminum or steel in the case of most ballistic missiles), skin thickness, coatings, any target rotation, the precise aim-point on the target (and, in the case of a missiles, whether it is under thrust or not) can all yield different effects.352 Applying laser energy to a non-burning stage of a multistage, solid-propellant missile, for instance, may be more like trying to puncture an uninflated tire, whereas the same incident energy might cause catastrophic destruction if applied to a burning stage.353 In addition, the intensity of directed-energy weapons decreases in proportion to the reciprocal of the square of the range from weapon to target. This rapid decrease in incident energy as range to the target increases tends to drive up the requirements for laser power and constellation size. The directed-energy application that has received the most funding and research has been the possibility of using laser weapons for ballistic-missile defense. According to most sources, the ability of an individual laser to concentrate energy on a target depends primarily on the size of optics.354
333 Bob Preston, May/June 2000
352 Lieutenant Colonel William H. Possel, �Lasers and Missile Defense: New Concepts for Space-based and Ground-based Laser Weapons,� Center for Strategy and Technology, Air War College, Maxwell AFB, Alabama, July 1998, Occasional Paper No. 5, pp. 12-13. In 1995, the Air Force Scientific Advisory Board estimated that effective engagement of a boost-phase ballistic missile would require about a megajoule of energy from a laser weapon�New World Vistas: Air and Space Power for the 21st Century, Major General Donald L. Lamberson (chair, Directed Energy Panel), Directed Energy Volume (Washington, DC: USAF SAB, 1995), p. 34.
353 Preston, May/June 2000.
354 New World Vistas, Lamberson, Directed Energy Volume, p. 26; also, Preston, May/June 2000.
355 Preston, May/June 2000.
x129 Fulghum, David a : Pentagon Reveals Mobile Pain Ray
2001-05
Abstract
Directed-energy weapons, including lasers and high-power microwave devices, continue to trickle out of the Pentagon's classified research and development programs, and the latest, a joint project by the Marine Corps and Air Force, is a nonlethal, millimeter-wave, antipersonnel ray. The 10-year, $40-million program was developed to this point with no obvious funding in the defense budget nor with any reference in Pentagon literature about nonlethal weapons development.
Full Text
Directed-energy weapons, including lasers and high-power microwave devices, continue to trickle out of the Pentagon's classified research and development programs, and the latest, a joint project by the Marine Corps and Air Force, is a nonlethal, millimeter-wave, antipersonnel ray.
The 10-year, $40-million program was developed to this point with no obvious funding in the defense budget nor with any reference in Pentagon literature about nonlethal weapons development. Critics of such weapons, who worry about health effects, say the program was purposefully kept ``black or nicely hidden'' to escape public scrutiny for a decade.
With antimissile, antiaircraft and computer-frying directed-energy emitters already being turned into weapons by the U.S., officials in the joint program say they intend this Raytheon-built, millimeter-wave (MMW) energy projector to be used for controlling crowds or perhaps driving off an approaching infantry force with bursts of intensely painful rays. A likely tactical scenario would be to swivel rays of short-pulse, 95-GHz. energy like a fire hose across a group of people to inflict sharp stings on the skin, even through clothing.
Many of the technical details are classified, but the Marine Corps admittedly wants the device to work at ranges of more than half a mile, beyond the effective range of small arms. The beam would be defocused to reduce power and the possibility of permanent damage. Contractors include Raytheon, Communications and Power Industries and Veridian Engineering.
Any effects, researchers contend, are harmless and immediately reversible. They predict at least two factors will help ensure there are no lasting effects. To keep the beam from inflicting burns or damaging eyes, it is limited in power and endurance. They also are convinced that a human's natural inclination--``the repel effect''--will be to escape the pain by running away or closing the eyes.
The directed-energy ray at the point of exposure causes moisture in the outer layer of skin to heat to a temperature high enough that it stings the surrounding tissue like a drop of scalding water. The ray penetrates less than 1/64 in. However, as was demonstrated on those attending the device's first public display, the sting immediately stops when bare skin is moved out of the ray.
Only one person was injured during tests of the millimeter-wave-frequency demonstrator. The test system was once accidentally programmed for an exposure far too long, and the subject suffered a small burn that healed normally, said Kirk Hackett, who leads the high-energy research facility which develops and tests high-power microwave weapons technology for the Air Force Research Laboratory, Kirtland AFB, N.M. Most of the 6,500 test exposures for the ray ranged from 3-10 sec. These tests were the first to expose a person's full body to the energy beam.
Such a weapon would be useful in urban conflicts and where collateral damage is a primary concern, said Marine Corps Col. George Fenton, director of the joint nonlethal weapons office. The Marine's vehicle-mounted active denial system is to be mounted on a Humvee light truck, if the Pentagon gives approval for weaponization of the program. Power would be provided by a turbo-alternator and battery system, Hackett said. Acquisition of the technology is to be taken over by USAF's electronic systems center this summer.
Air Force researchers are openly working on the long-range airborne laser as an antimissile weapon and, in a series of classified programs, are working on an array of high-power microwave and laser weapons and sensors. Laser sensors are in particular demand because they can produce detailed images of targets, even to the point of determining the materials they are made from. HPM weapons are valued because they can be used to scramble computer memories and otherwise disable computers that control key battlefield command and communications capabilities.
The Air Force, cosponsor of the project, has other targets in mind for high-power microwave weapons. Researchers want to put such directed-energy weapons on unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and perhaps the Joint Strike Fighter to burn up the electronics of key devices, including vehicle ignitions, as part of a combination computer attack and information warfare campaign. The British also are developing HPM weapons for use on UAVs and to be fired by artillery.
However, to shift from an antipersonnel weapon to a device that damages electronic circuitry requires far different applications of the technology. The frequency of the weapon would have to shift much lower, from 95 GHz. to around 1 GHz., the peak power of the beam would have to increase dramatically and it would have to be powerful enough for use at longer ranges. For example, to survive ground fire, even unmanned aircraft have to operate at an altitude of at least 15,000 ft.
Researchers say they have made technological breakthroughs on power supplies to run such weapons even when mounted on vehicles or aircraft. Batteries, generators and devices driven by shafts attached to the aircraft's engine would be expected to supply the necessary power. Operational planners say the UAV is the most likely candidate for HPM weapons since it can get closer to targets without endangering air crews.
Word count: 839
Aviation Week & Space Technology 154.19 (May 7, 2001): 82-83.
Copyright 2001 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
x130 Fulghum, David a. : Laser Can Foil SAMs, Air-to-Air Missiles
2001-05
Abstract (summary)
A new infrared countermeasures system, designed to protect large aircraft like the C-17 from heat-seeking missiles, has for the first time successfully used a laser to scan the inner workings and outer shape of an attacking weapon, precisely identify it and, finally, provide the correct jamming signal to lead it off course. This breakthrough gives visibility to a larger trend, say senior aerospace planners. They believe air-to-air and antiaircraft missiles are a mature technology, about to be left in the dust by rapidly advancing directed energy weapons. The first successful live-fire test of the Laser Infrared countermeasures Flyout Experiment, a $30-million cooperative effort by the Air Force Research Laboratory at Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio, and Lockheed Martin in Akron, Ohio, was completed earlier this year at White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico.
Full Text
A new infrared countermeasures system, designed to protect large aircraft like the C-17 from heat-seeking missiles, has for the first time successfully used a laser to scan the inner workings and outer shape of an attacking weapon, precisely identify it and, finally, provide the correct jamming signal to lead it off course.
This breakthrough gives visibility to a larger trend, say senior aerospace planners. They believe air-to-air and antiaircraft missiles are a mature technology, about to be left in the dust by rapidly advancing directed energy weapons (DEW). Greater profitability will come from directed energy weapons, as missile development flattens. ``The major companies already realize that the future belongs to DEW,'' an aerospace official said. To reflect this conviction, they have been quietly forming divisions dedicated to directed-energy work.
The first successful live-fire test of the Laser Infrared countermeasures Flyout Experiment (Life), a $30-million cooperative effort by the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) at Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio, and Lockheed Martin in Akron, Ohio, was completed earlier this year at White Sands Missile Range, N.M. In its mature form, the system will use a multiband laser to identify an approaching weapon by the sensor it carries and other characteristics. A closed-loop infrared countermeasures (CLIRCM) capability enables the system to assess the characteristics of an incoming missile and then return a complex synchronized jam code. That causes the missile to make a high-g turn away from the aircraft (to chase a cluster of false targets), break lock and miss by a great distance. The system phases the generation of false targets so that the incoming missile tracks away in one direction.
Older open-loop, laser-based self-defense systems produce random false targets that make the missile wobble in flight, but not necessarily break lock on the target.
``The missile's guidance loop is degraded, but not destroyed,'' said an Air Force researcher. ``The result of [such] suboptimal jamming is that [the threat missile] is wandering around still trying to reacquire the target. It doesn't result in large miss distances. But if [CLIRCM] can drive the missile off efficiently in one direction, the total time to jam is a lot less [as little as 3-4 sec.].'' Total engagement time is reduced, and the defensive system is free to move quickly to the next antiaircraft missile.
The Life tests employed shoulder-launched surface-to-air missiles (SAMs) fired at a specially designed carrier suspended from a cable between two mountaintops, said John Wojnar, Lockheed Martin's director of advanced programs business development.
The Life advanced technology demonstration is to conduct a second set of live missile firing tests this summer, using both air-to-air missiles and SAMs. These will be followed by captive carry tests on a C-17 in 2002. The technology will then be shifted to Wright-Patterson AFB as a potential upgrade to the Large Aircraft IRCM system.
The Pentagon has the immediate problem of proliferating infrared antiaircraft and air-to-air weapons. While its researchers have produced effective defenses against radar-guided missiles, the ability to defeat infrared missiles has not been as effective. Aircraft like the C-17 produce huge heat signatures. As a result, they are threatened by the hundreds of thousands of cheap, very mobile SA-14/-16/-18-type missiles on the world market that could be operated clandestinely within a few miles of an airfield. About half of the aircraft lost in combat over the last two decades have been to heat-seeking missiles, said James Eichorn, Lockheed Martin's Life program manager. Because the U.S. has been so effective in foiling radar-guided missiles, foreign manufacturers are modifying their radar missiles with electro-optical and infrared sensors to avoid detection.
The new technology is expected to aid in the development of future self-defense systems for both manned and unmanned aircraft. While the AFRL/Lockheed Martin Life system is designed to react only to missiles already in the air, more futuristic systems will try to find threats, and damage or destroy them before they are launched.
WHILE NOT PART of the Life program, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has launched several programs to design and test key laser-based IR countermeasures (IRCM) components. Two--named Medusa and Steered Agile Beam--focus on conformal optical arrays for high-performance aircraft that neither disturb aerodynamic flow, which creates drag, nor increase the aircraft's radar signature. It would shift infrared countermeasures systems away from ponderous, electro-optical turrets, thereby reducing cost, weight, space and reaction time. Both programs explore the utility of these arrays for the Joint Strike Fighter, F-22 or even the visionary unmanned air combat vehicle (UCAV). The latter is to rely heavily on autonomous, closed-loop systems to identify the target.
Earlier this month, in associated work, AFRL's directed energy directorate at Kirtland AFB, N.M., awarded $23 million for a five-year Aircraft Directed-Energy Laser Applications (Adela) program to develop and test an antiaircraft missile defense system by 2004. Textron received $13 million to design, develop and test lasers and laser beam controls. Raytheon was given $4.5 million to integrate plans for field testing at its Tucson, Ariz., facility. ITT Industries was awarded $4.5 million to conduct laser effects experiments against advanced antiaircraft missiles. Applied Research Corp. of Atlanta received $1 million to develop and revise missile computer models.
The Life testbed now being demonstrated is made up of five basic components, parts of which will be upgraded as testing progresses:
-- A two-color IR missile warning sensor and processor for wide-area (90 X 90 deg.) missile detection that cues the system that the aircraft is under attack. ``They went to two color to ensure the wide-field-of-view warning sensor could detect missile launches in a cluttered environment and not be plagued by large numbers of false alarms,'' said Bill Taylor, technical adviser for the AFRL's electro-optical warfare branch. The two-color system allows the missile plume to be distinguished spectrally from the solar glints and clutter. The Life system also has a reduced detection threshold which makes it better able to see faint, fleeting targets.
-- A fine-track, narrow field-of-view camera that uses a very sensitive, cooled 512 X 512-pixel infrared focal plane array to track the missile after cueing by the missile warning sensor. After tracking the missile passively, the system shifts to an active laser mode performing functions somewhat like a laser radar.
-- A laser-specific gimbal that provides very precise pointing of the laser while tracking the incoming missile to keep the beam consistently on the target. Laser energy is transmitted in a very narrow beam allowing a finer focus of jamming power. High-power lasers are usually associated with heavy weight, so lower power, narrow-beam lasers are preferred. The smaller the gimbal, the less mass there is to move, therefore the system responds quicker.
-- The current multiwatt mid-IR laser will be replaced with a more capable device built by BAE Systems for jamming bands 1, 2 and 4. It is expected to be available for tests during the next year. It will operate in multiple wavelengths to ensure it won't be fooled by countermeasures. Earlier laser systems keyed on a missile's engine plume and used a laser beam wide enough to encompass the plume and the missile's sensor. But a wider beam width means there is less total jamming power applied to the sensor aperture.
-- And a closed-loop IRCM signal processor with a countermeasure effectiveness assessment capability. Today, all the IR countermeasure systems are open loop, which means they only transmit. A closed-loop system like Lockheed Martin's both transmits and receives laser signals. It uses the laser in a radar-like function as the heart of a closed-loop operation capable of defending against a variety of missiles.
Like many other new weapons and sensors, a key technology for Life is an on-board processor capable of performing billions of operations per second. Such speed is critical given a SAM's flight time of a few seconds when aircraft are at low altitude. Life's processors hold detailed algorithms for threat identification ``that allows us to point out the exact jam code instead of a generic [jamming signal that may not work in time],'' an Air Force official said. Earlier defensive systems would simply run through a series of jam codes, hoping to get to the right one before the missile struck. It is important that the complex scan patterns of modern infrared missiles be synchronized with the jam code. Gathering such data is difficult since a number of countries have made their own unique changes to SAM weaponry, making them hard to jam.
THERE ARE FUTURE antiaircraft weapons that will be even tougher to defeat. For example, new missiles like Israel's Python 4 air-to-air missile and Japan's Keiko SAM have sensor components that don't spin or roll. These movements within the seeker heads made it possible to identify older sensors and figure out appropriate defensive measures.
``Imaging seekers on next-generation SAMs could make everyone's life hard,'' said Eichorn. ``There's no unique characteristics to work on.'' Life's modestly powered laser confuses, but doesn't damage the enemy seeker. In 10-15 years, when SAMs are further improved, more powerful lasers will be introduced in follow-on systems that can damage or destroy a seeker head.
The massive computing power of the new Lockheed Martin Life defensive system allows it to prioritize missiles that have targeted the aircraft. Often shoulder-fired SAMs are launched in pairs to improve the possibility of a kill. The system judges which missile will reach it first, directs the laser to the most immediate threat, modulates it correctly for a quick break lock, fires, notifies the pilot that the threat is gone and then shifts to the next most-pressing concern. The system works autonomously, leaving the aircrew to focus on its primary missions.
``These initial tests demonstrated a major breakthrough . . . and paves the way toward incorporation of the techniques and technologies . . . into next-generation aircraft,'' said Mark Wunderlich, the AFRL Life program manager.
In the future, analysts envision a three-layered self-protection system for aircraft against IR missiles. The first layer would keep enemy missiles on the launch rail by using lasers to damage or destroy the IR trackers at a SAM site. The second layer would be a system similar to Life that jams missiles in flight. The third layer of defense may involve use of antimissile missiles small enough to be fired from flare dispensers. The weapons would be designed to kill even antiaircraft missiles with multimode seekers that operate outside the IR portion of the electromagnetic spectrum.
Photograph
Photograph: Detailed CLIRCM algorithms analyze laser returns and select the precise jamming code that will put the missile into a high-g turn.
Word count: 1752
Copyright 2001 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
Aviation Week & Space Technology 154.21 (May 21, 2001): 43-44.
Publication date
May 21, 2001
x131 Army ramping up directed energy weapons for land, air, and space
2001-07
Abstract (summary)
THEL is a deuterium fluoride chemical laser operating at a power level of hundreds of kilowatts. The complete system involves a beam director, a command and control shelter, and a radar. THEL is an Advanced Concept Technology Demonstration (ACTD).
When completed, the ABL aircraft will carry COIL (chemical oxygen iodine laser) on its nose. COIL is a megawatt-class laser equivalent to 100,000 100-watt light bulbs, and is capable of destroying boost- phase missiles by targeting their fuel tanks. COIL was first developed by Philips Lab at Kirtland Air Force Base in the mid- 1970s.
"Once we have that, we have three lasers that actually operate through the main optical system," explained [James Forrest]. These lasers include two solid state lasers, a track-illuminating laser, and a beacon-illuminating laser.
Full Text
Several new directed energy systems are being developed by the services, in conjunction with the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization (BMDO), that will use powerful laser energy to destroy missile targets from land, air, and even space.
To address the threat of short-range missiles on the ground, the Army is currently working jointly with Israel on the THEL (Tactical High-Energy Laser) program.
Israel is interested in eventually using THEL to protect its northern border against potential rocket attacks by terrorists.
THEL is a deuterium fluoride chemical laser operating at a power level of hundreds of kilowatts. The complete system involves a beam director, a command and control shelter, and a radar. THEL is an Advanced Concept Technology Demonstration (ACTD).
The most recent test of THEL was a limited operational capability test in which the crew, consisting of two people, didn't know where the launch was going to originate.
The system is largely automated and doesn't require a tremendous amount of technical expertise to operate, according to Richard Bradshaw, program manager for the Directed Energy Technology Program Office at the Army's Space and Missile Defense Technical Center.
"You could almost take anybody in here, and probably in an hour, teach them how to operate the system," Bradshaw said at a missile defense conference here.
So far, THEL has shot down 23 rockets. More tests are scheduled for this summer, according to Bradshaw.
THEL has been tested against Katyusha rockets, which are approximately 3.5 meters long and 122 millimeters in diameter. Katyusha rockets did considerable damage to American bases during the Vietnam War, according to Bradshaw.
For the time being, Israel has elected not to employ THEL because it is not mobile. However, the current system is being used as a test bed for a future mobile THEL system.
"The Israelis would be happy with a [system that fit in] a tractor- trailer," said Bradshaw. He said the goal of the mobile THEL development program is to eventually build a system capable of being transported in a C-130 cargo aircraft.
The Airborne Laser
Later this year, the Boeing Company will roll out an extensively modified 747-400 cargo aircraft that will serve as the platform for the Airborne Laser (ABL) program.
ABL is the air component of BMDO's boost-phase missile defense program, and is intended to address the proliferation of short-range missiles, according to Deputy Program Director Col. James Forrest.
The system would be the first layer of defense in BMDO's planned "multi-layered" missile defense system.
"If we can't attack the missile, we can pass that information on and be backed up," said Forrest.
When completed, the ABL aircraft will carry COIL (chemical oxygen iodine laser) on its nose. COIL is a megawatt-class laser equivalent to 100,000 100-watt light bulbs, and is capable of destroying boost- phase missiles by targeting their fuel tanks. COIL was first developed by Philips Lab at Kirtland Air Force Base in the mid- 1970s.
Infrared sensors placed around the outside of the ABL aircraft provide 360-degree coverage to detect missile launches. A modified LANTIRN pod on the top of the aircraft provides the range to the target, as well as cueing to the battle management system.
"Once we have that, we have three lasers that actually operate through the main optical system," explained Forrest. These lasers include two solid state lasers, a track-illuminating laser, and a beacon-illuminating laser.
The track-illuminating laser finds the nose of the target, while other sensors locate the plume of the missile, thus allowing the system to calculate the missile's total length. This calculation then allows the system to determine precisely where to hit the missile.
The beacon-illuminating laser helps allow for atmospheric compensation. "We actually condition the beam to compensate for the optical turbulence in the atmosphere," he said.
Boeing's modifications to the basic 747 airframe constitute the most extensive modification to an aircraft the company has ever carried out, Forrest said.
Flight testing of the first aircraft, without the laser aboard, is scheduled to begin next February.
The first lethal test of the ABL system is currently scheduled for 2003. It will involve "putting six laser modules on a 747, and that'll be sufficient power for us to shoot down a SCUD-like missile in 2003," Forrest said.
The eventual operational configuration will involve 14 laser modules on each of a fleet of seven aircraft.
Since the laser cannot operate through clouds, the plane will loiter in a figure-eight pattern, at 38,500 feet, waiting for missiles to appear.
Each aircraft will carry enough laser fuel to destroy 20 short- range missiles at distances of more than 200 miles.
Lockheed Martin is providing the beam control/fire control system.
TRW is developing the laser module itself.
Space-based laser
Further in the future, another solution to intercepting missiles in their boost phase could be the Space-based Laser program - a system of orbiting satellites capable of destroying ballistic missile- class targets from space.
The seed for this future system is the Integrated Flight Experiment (IFX), which is scheduled to culminate in a launch in 2012. Based on data from IFX, a potential operational space-based laser system could be in operation by 2020, according to Program Director Col. William McCasland.
However, McCasland emphasized, "we're in a concept exploration phase.
There just isn't a firm plan at all." By 2007, the completed IFX hardware will undergo integrated testing in a new facility at Stennis Space Center. The facility will be capable of simulating a vacuum environment in which to test the unit. This vacuum environment must be preserved even when nine or 10 pounds of laser reactant are being expelled into it every second.
The centerpiece of the system is the Alpha laser - a megawatt- class hydrogen fluoride laser.
Since IFX will not result in a system actually capable of destroying non-cooperative targets, it can be developed in compliance with the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, McCasland said.
The requirement to comply with ABM represents "guidance that we inherited from the last Administration, and so far this Administration hasn't changed that at all," McCasland said.
The Air Force is currently the executing agent for the program. By 2002, the funding for the program will be shifted entirely to BMDO.
- Jefferson Morris (jeff_morris@AviationNow.com) Copyright 2001 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
6 7/19/2001 Article:185210 Missile defense push won't mean
nuclear arms cut, Gen. Welch says The nation's nuclear arsenal can
shrink further while still remaining a deterrent, but the Bush Administration's push for a missile defense system won't accelerate that process anytime soon, retired Air Force Gen.
Larry Welch said July 18.
The missile defense system being proposed would initally be able to handle only a few incoming warheads by hitting each one with multiple kill vehicles, he said, which he described as a high "exchange ratio." "To give up offensive missiles for this capability ... we may have to address that trade-off" in the future, he said, but not for at least a decade.
Welch, the former Air Force chief of staff, helmed a review panel that concluded in 1998 that the National Missile Defense program was being rushed and did not include enough testing.
Missile defense officials have now requested a 57 percent increase for their programs and have mapped out a much more rigorous testing schedule. Welch said the program now is in line with what his panel recommended.
"I think the Administration has become very much more realistic in terms of expectations," Welch said.
Word count: 1237
Copyright 2001 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
Publication title
Aerospace Daily
Volume
199
Issue
77
Pages
3
Number of pages
0
Publication year
2001
Publication date
Jul 19, 2001
x132 Wall, Robert : Killing Missiles At the Speed of Light
2001-08
Abstract (summary)
After more than 20 years of research, US military officials believe they are on the verge of demonstrating the ability to destroy a boosting ballistic missile using a high-power laser. The Pentagon is betting heavily on directed-energy weapons because the timelines for a boost-phase intercept kill are extremely short. With less than 5 min. of boost time of the target, using a missile to catch it is a daunting problem. The Airborne Laser (ABL), the largest program among all boost-phase intercept efforts next fiscal year, is also the one with the most research and development behind it. The Air Force plans to begin flight tests of the laser on a modified 747-400 freighter early next year. Pentagon officials are particularly drawn to a space-based system because a large enough constellation would provide permanent global coverage, while ABL or most of the Pentagon's other boost-phase intercept systems would have to be deployed and positioned precisely to carry out their mission.
Full Text
Translate [unavailable for this document]
After more than 20 years of research, U.S. military officials believe they are on the verge of demonstrating the ability to destroy a boosting ballistic missile using a high-power laser.
The Pentagon is betting heavily on directed-energy weapons because the timelines for a boost-phase intercept kill are extremely short. With less than 5 min. of boost time of the target, using a missile to catch it is a daunting problem.
``The speed of light cuts down that [time] rather tremendously, so that's why we like laser energy for that type of a system,'' said Air Force Lt. Gen. Ronald Kadish, director of the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization.
The Airborne Laser, the largest program among all boost-phase intercept efforts next fiscal year, is also the one with the most research and development behind it. Initially, ABL is being designed to defeat short-range ballistic missiles. But Kadish said ``we are taking deliberate steps to prepare ABL for a strategic defense role as well.''
System designers currently are focusing on defeating about 30 types of threats, such as liquid and solid-fueled, single- and multi-stage missiles. Destroying longer range missiles may not require a redesign, a senior defense official said. Since ABL is intended to destroy missiles by shooting through the atmosphere
(using a deformable mirror to compensate for turbulence), targeting an ICBM that would be boosting at higher altitudes in less turbulent atmosphere should be possible with the same system. However, that capability must be demonstrated, he said.
THE ABL CONCEPT hasn't been without its critics. For instance, the Pentagon's internal operational test community has suggested that ``producing a system that is operationally suitable will be a challenge.'' Furthermore, in a report to Congress earlier this year, test officials raised concerns that a missile warhead could still cause damage because ABL won't necessarily destroy the rocket but could only shorten its flight time by damaging the booster.
Confidence in the emerging field of laser weapons technology was bolstered last year when the U.S. Army destroyed a short-range Katyusha rocket with its Tactical High-Energy Laser. Although Thel is aimed against a different set of targets than the ABL or Space-Based Laser (SBL)--operating at much shorter ranges--in many respects, the Katyusha is a more difficult target to destroy. The repeated success against short-range rockets gives laser experts confidence that they can certainly knock down boosting ballistic missiles.
But Pentagon officials acknowledge that directed-energy programs have ``a lot of proving to do.'' For ABL, that event will come relatively soon, in about 26 months, when it is slated to attempt to destroy a boosting Scud-like ballistic missile. In the run-up, the ABL will be tested against target boards and mock missiles that are air-dropped.
If the lethal demonstration is successful, the Pentagon would consider using the system in emergencies. However, the prototype ABL will have only six of 14 laser modules and therefore not the full range of an operational system. Additionally, the first shoot-down will not be conducted at the maximum range of even the interim system's capability, said Col. James Forrest, ABL deputy program director.
The Air Force plans to begin flight tests of the laser on a modified 747-400 freighter early next year. First flight at Boeing's Wichita, Kan., facility, where the aircraft is being reconfigured and the battle management system installed, is expected in February. Work on the aircraft is about 80% complete, Forrest said.
Two months later, the aircraft will move to Edwards AFB, Calif., for testing and installation of the optics and laser elements. One of the most recent milestones was delivery of the first two of six infrared sensors to Boeing last month.
The sensors, derivatives of the F-14 infrared search and track system, will be used by ABL to spot the boosting missile and provide 360-deg. coverage. The sensors are being used to refine missile-tracking software. The optics will be added first, tested alone and then in conjunction with the battle management package. The laser will be added and also tested by itself and then with other components.
There will be differences in the way the Pentagon plans to put together later versions of ABL from the prototype, designated YAL-1A.
``We already learned things for the [engineering and manufacturing development] design,'' Forrest noted. But that is causing some heartache in the Pentagon test office. The group complains that given the growing differences, a 24-month EMD phase is likely to be too short. In total, the Air Force expects to field seven aircraft.
Program engineers recently completed a key event by testing a redesigned laser turbopump that's used to pump the hydrogen peroxide fuel through the megawatt-power chemical oxygen iodine laser (Coil). Design problems delayed delivery of the critical element, which was tested successfully for the first time last month at TRW's Capistrano, Calif., test site. The next step is trying to get ``first light''--or laser energy--out of the first of six laser modules to be installed on the prototype aircraft. USAF officials hope to achieve the milestone this month.
Besides its own work, ABL is serving as a trailblazer for SBL technologies. Pentagon officials are particularly drawn to a space-based system because a large enough constellation would provide permanent global coverage, while ABL or most of the Pentagon's other boost-phase intercept systems would have to be deployed and positioned precisely to carry out their mission. A Russian SS-18-like intercontinental ballistic missile is the baseline threat against which SBL is being designed.
But there also are important differences between the two directed-energy systems. While ABL uses a Coil, its space-based counterpart will employ a hydrogen fluoride system. Coil is not suitable for space operations because its chemicals won't mix properly in a zero-g environment, according to Air Force Col. William N. McCasland, SBL program director.
An area in which SBL engineers are directly leveraging ABL work involves the components that will guide the laser. ``The beam control is remarkably similar,'' McCasland said. But because of the close affinities of technologies, some of the problems affecting ABL also are encountered by its space-based counterpart. For instance, ABL officials have seen cost growth because of an industry-wide shortage of some optical coatings. The same bottleneck affects SBL, McCasland said.
AT THIS POINT, SBL work is focused on an integrated flight experiment (IFX) planned for around 2012, with a major ground test of the flight-ready hardware that's supposed to go into space starting about five years earlier. IFX should provide about 110 sec. of in-orbit power using the hydrogen fluoride laser. However, it is serving only as a technology demonstrator, not a limited operational system, program managers stress.
Requirements for an operational system haven't been defined yet, and officials are still debating whether they can augment a constellation of lasers with relay mirrors, or whether an all-laser system is needed. An operational system wouldn't be ready until 2018-20. While industry officials have indicated an acceleration is possible, program managers are not pushing for a faster pace at this point.
The range requirement for the experiment, while not spelled out in detail, will be far more than 100 naut. mi. An operational system would have to have much greater capability.
A baseline requirements review for IFX was recently completed that assigned notional weight goals for different parts of the satellite design. Work has started on defining interfaces and lower level system design elements. Another review is slated for the fall.
To fit into the constraints of a heavy-lift Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle, the total spacecraft is being limited to 53 ft. in height and 43,400 lb. By far the largest element will be the laser payload, which has been allotted 25,265 lb. The beam control is being designed to 5,681 lb., while the beam director--the mirror through which the laser will be pointed--is assigned 3,420 lb. The mirror will measure 2.8 meters in diameter, although it would have to be 8-10 meters in an operational version.
The weight allocation may shift as the program progresses. Because flight weight is such a critical element of the engineering task, managers have established a control group to monitor progress in this area.
IN THE NEAR TERM, engineers will pursue two major risk-reduction paths. One activity centers on demonstrating the ability to control the laser's wavefront. Wavefront manipulation is needed on a multi-line laser such as the one to be used in SBL to achieve defraction-limited performance, which in turn allows the system to project enough power onto a focused spot on the target.
The second major engineering activity will involve the laser itself. While the Alpha laser at Capistrano has validated the basic design of the type of laser SBL will use, it doesn't meet the efficiency requirements and power-level demands for a space-based system. A subscale SBL, also known as the Short Stack that would consist of 10 of 92 rings that produce the laser energy, will be built at Capistrano with the hope of achieving first light in 2003. It will also serve to generate much more laser time.
Alpha has lased for a little more than 100 sec., which isn't enough to start building a flight-ready system. ``We can't go through a process of discovery about the degree to which the laser works on orbit,'' McCasland stressed.
The full flight prototype will be assembled to undergo extensive ground testing at a new facility being built at Stennis Space Center in Mississippi. The prototype will include all elements of weapons-relevant components of an SBL, the laser and optics, but not the spacecraft itself. Once testing of the hardware is completed, it will be refurbished and packaged for flight.
USAF officials hope both directed-energy projects will do more for them than just missile defense work. ABL is being envisioned for potential use in destroying cruise missiles, aircraft or even surface-to-air missiles. SBL, for instance, is seen as potentially having a space-to-ground application, although that would require a laser using an atmosphere-penetrating wavelength that currently isn't being pursued.
SBL also may be able to destroy air-breathing targets or satellites. In both cases, military planners believe they can use the laser system's extensive surveillance tools to provide vital battlefield information to other operators.
Illustration
Illustration: Chart: Boeing has completed about 80% of the modifications it is making to the 747-400F at its Wichita, Kan., facility. The aircraft is slated for first flight early next year and will move to Edwards AFB, Calif., a few weeks later.
Photograph
Photograph: The Pentagon hasn't defined the size of an operational constellation of space-based lasers, but it could range from 18-48 spacecraft and include some relay mirrors.
Illustration
Illustration: Map: This planned test facility at the Stennis Space Center will be where the space-based laser experimental hardware is to undergo intense ground testing before being readied for launch.
Word count: 1785
Copyright 2001 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
Aviation Week & Space Technology 155.7 (August 13, 2001): 55.
x133 Nielsen, Paul D; Noor, Ahmed K; Venneri, Samuel L : The next century of air power
2001-11
The next century of air power
Nielsen, Paul D;Noor, Ahmed K;Venneri, Samuel L
Mechanical Engineering; Nov 2003; 125, 11; ProQuest Science Journals
pg. 34
The U.S. Air Force has been pursuing the transformation of air and space power through development of technologies that yield new capabilities and by adopting novel operational concepts that enhance our ability to achieve desired military effects. Maturing a comprehensive set of technologies is the mission of the Air Force Research Laboratory.
The transformation includes migrating military capabilities to unmanned platforms for a wide range of air applications and developing new directed energy capabilities, which produce effects on the battlefield ranging from the traditional destruction of enemy equipment to the revolutionary non-lethal, non-destructive stopping of advancing enemy troops.
...
Directed Energy
Precision weapons have provent heir value over the last 20 years and have been a deciding factor in all of our recent large-scale military operations. However, the precision weapons of the second century of aerospace may not always carry traditional kinetic warheads like those today.
Directed energy weapons, both laser and high-power microwave, are beginning to emerge as future options for military commanders. These new concepts will provide both the traditional destructive capability of today with a new capability to temporarily or permanently disable an enemy target rather than to destroy it.
The best-known current application of high-power directed energy is the Airborne Laser, or ABL, program now in developmental testing. With roots stretching back to the Airborne Laser Laboratory of the 1970s, the system places a weapons-class chemical laser aboard a modified Boeing 745-400 freighter. Its mission is to destroy enemy ballistic missiles shortly after launch while they are still in the boost phase of flight.
There are actually four lasers onboard this aircraft, as well as advanced optical systems, a sensor suite, and a state-of-the-art computer system. These individual elements function as a system of systems to find, track, and destroy enemy missiles.
...
High-power microwaves, a second directed energy technology, can producte innovative soft-kill, or non-lethal, effects. It has huge potential in command and control warefare, in supporessing enemy air defenses, against tactical aircraft or unmanned aierial vehicles, including missiles, and in airbase defense. When high-power microwaves encounter present-day microelectronic systems, the results can be disastrous to the electronics. Microwaves can cause systems to burn out and fail, or to function improperly.
A short burst of high-power microwave energy, while being lethal to the electronics, will have basically no effect on humans operating the equipment. The low collateral damage aspect of this technology and the heavy reliance on electronic components in today's weaponry make microwave weapons attractive in a wide variety of missions, especially where avoiding civilian casualties is a major concern.
At lower power levels, beam microwaves can also be used to prevent intrusion by unauthorized individuals without hurting them. If the proper frequency and wavelength are selected, millimeter wave energy will penetrate less that 1/64 of an inch into an individual's skin, stimulating the pain sensors and causing an experience of severe pain without physical damage.
x134 Bob Preston et al. : Space Weapons Earth Wars
2002-01
by Bob Preston; Dana J. Johnson; Sean J.A. Edwards; Michael Miller; Calvin Shipbaugh
http://www.rand.org/pubs/monograph_reports/MR1209/
During the Reagan administration in the 1980s, vigorous public debate surfaced with the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), a sustained, significant investment in technologies for defense against ballistic missiles. The initiative explored space-based defenses�interceptors, directed-energy weapons, and even nuclear weapons (x-ray lasers). All these space-based missile defenses would require renegotiation or abrogation of the ABM Treaty and presumably also of related arms control treaties. The last item would also violate the Outer Space Treaty�s ban on nuclear weapons in space.
[*] Directed-energy weapons include lasers, high-energy particle beams, and highpower microwave beams.
[**] To avoid the issue of nuclear weapons in space, proponents of the x-ray laser offered to base it on the earth or in the oceans on missiles that would lift the weapon above the atmosphere where its x-rays could propagate to the target.
...
The most significant characteristic of this class of weapon is propagation of destructive energy at very high speeds. ... However, while the speed of propagation may be dazzling, the speed of effect will be more pedestrian. Because useful effects take time to accumulate or sustain and time to redirect from target to target, the capacity of directed-energy weapons is inherently limited. The specific limits depend on the scale and duration of effect necessary for the military purpose at hand. Useful levels of disruptive or destructive energy at the target range from gentle to extreme; the class of weapons we discuss here includes the range from electronic jammers to laser cutting torches. At the level of jamming, a weapon consists of a radio transmitter tuned to cover a target range of frequencies and focused on target receivers to achieve a power level high enough to compete with the receivers� intended signals. At the level of destruction, a weapon supplies enough power to heat some critical component of the target beyond its ability to survive.
The challenge in achieving destructive levels of directed energy from space is scaling up to the power levels and component sizes needed to focus a lethal energy level over the much greater distances inherent in space basing. For example, a laser welding machine in a factory typically uses a laser with a few hundred to a few thousand watts of power directed by optics with a diameter less than 0.1 m. A spacebased laser intended for targets on or near the earth requires millions of watts of power and optics with a diameter of about 10 m. The ability to create effects at the level of interference or disruption (e.g., jamming) is readily available worldwide; generating and directing the more destructive effects from or through space is a stretch for everyone.
...
The amount of energy needed at the target to produce the desired effect depends on how the weapon�s energy couples with the target. Factors that influence the degree or efficiency of coupling include the target�s materials, configuration, and orientation and how these interact with the particular characteristics of the energy the weapon transmits. Laser energy interacts with the surface of the target. High-energy particles penetrate further into the target... The weapon�s budget for energy needed at the target must include an assumption about the efficiency of coupling (or, equivalently, of the hardness of the target) and some degree of uncertainty about the assumption.
x135 Fulghum, David a. : Lasers, HPM Weapons Near Operational Status
2002-07
Aviation Week & Space Technology 157.4 (July 22, 2002): 173-174.
Abstract (summary)
Directed energy weapons - lasers and high-power microwaves - are emerging from the black world of classified projects as the time nears for their debut on aircraft, vehicles, ships and eventually even spacecraft. The first combat applications, probably involving high-power microwaves (HPM) used as antielectronics weapons, will appear within the next 4-5 years, say top Raytheon officials. A short, intense energy surge can scramble computer memories and damage electronic components. Raytheon is already involved in most of the major directed energy programs. The company is two years into a project that would put a laser weapon on Lockheed Martin's multiservice, F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. It also is one of the contractors asked to study the design of a high-power microwave weapon for Boeing's X-45 unmanned combat air vehicle (UCAV).
Full Text
Directed energy weapons--lasers and high-power microwaves--are emerging from the black world of classified projects as the time nears for their debut on aircraft, vehicles, ships and eventually even spacecraft.
The first combat applications, probably involving high-power microwaves (HPM) used as antielectronics weapons, will appear within the next 4-5 years, say top Raytheon officials. A short, intense energy surge can scramble computer memories and damage electronic components.
Raytheon is already involved in most of the major directed energy programs. The company is two years into a project that would put a laser weapon on Lockheed Martin's multiservice, F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. It also is one of the contractors asked to study the design of a high-power microwave weapon for Boeing's X-45 unmanned combat air vehicle (UCAV). Moreover, it has won the DD-X contract for next-generation U.S. Navy ships. Its electric drive will one day power a laser-based air defense system.
In the future, ``our strategy is simple,'' said Mike Booen, head of Raytheon Electronic System's directed energy programs. ``We want to replace high explosives with directed energy weapons [DEW]. Any munitions or platforms that carry high explosives, we want to replace with DEW. We want to enable new missions where . . . high explosives [are called for but can't be used] because of problems of collateral damage or the need for a facility after the conflict.''
While Pentagon acquisition officials are cautious of the new technologies and want demonstrations of its capabilities, the trends are already in place. ``You only have to look at science and technology funding in the current budget planning,'' Booen said. ``If you plot what is being invested in traditional precision munitions, you see a down slope. If you look at how much the Defense Dept. is investing in directed energy, it's on an up slope. People are recognizing that directed energy will start going on all sorts of platforms as the next step in munitions. And technology is mature enough that it's now only a configuration change, not a leap in physics.''
One of the significant problems is scaling up the output of directed energy weapons.
``Power is king,'' Booen said. ``Distance is the trade space.'' Therefore, close-range missions will likely emerge first. They would include the self-defense of manned aircraft air- and ground-launched missiles and the use of unmanned aircraft that can fly close to anti-aircraft defenses. ``The bottom line is that there are mission areas where you do not have to wait until you have a megawatt of laser power on your aircraft to do militarily important things,'' he said.
Laser weapons produce very small, precise beams of energy that can physically damage aircraft as well as cruise and ballistic missiles, set fire to ground structures or, with less power, befuddle missile guidance systems with false targets.
HPM have broader beams that can be used, for example, to heat the water in a person's skin to unendurable levels as a crowd-dispersion device. At higher power, it becomes a weapon that can erase computer memories and damage communications and other battlefield electronic devices. Several HPM projects are underway to test their effectiveness against underground and deeply buried targets that are immune to conventional bombs.
Designers, at least for the present, have chosen to put laser weapons on manned aircraft and HPM on unmanned aircraft because of the possibility that the latter's less-precisely-focused output or its electrical side lobes might affect the UCAV's flight systems and cause it to become uncontrollable. Currently the weapon is being designed for a later, Block 30 version of the Air Force UCAV.
As directed energy weapons emerge, so too, will the rules of engagement which shape their use and design. Israel, a leader in military innovation, is largely putting off development of such weapons except in an antimissile role. One of the country's military technologists said they are concerned that using an HPM weapon, for example, could be mired in legal reviews since it might result in new, unanticipated types of collateral damage. While HPM targets electronics and humans, it could also disrupt electricity to a hospital or even affect individuals with pacemakers. None of these issues have been completely thought through, he said.
Developers and the military are still loath to talk about these technologies but evidence about the technologies involved in directed energy weapons and platforms has emerged that are expected to carry them. The aerospace industry also is at work on simulating and modeling the effects of such weaponry. Raytheon, for example, has been developing advanced algorithms and computer tools for two years at its simulation facility in Tucson.
There also appears to be a growing sophistication in how potential military customers are approaching DEW. Initially, customers were interested in individual pieces of hardware, said Louise Francesconi, vice president of Raytheon Missile Systems' business unit. That is no longer the case. Interest now is focused on integrated solutions that include not just the laser or HPM weapon, but also sensor and battle management functions, she said.
DEW technology has been gathering momentum with the construction of powerful solid-state lasers that can be used in the development of small weapons. Solid-state technology also offers fewer environmental concerns than chemical lasers like those in the U.S. Air Force's YAL-1A airborne laser aircraft which requires a Boeing 747 to carry the long-range laser device and huge amounts of toxic chemicals aloft.
However, there is interest in larger, non-airborne directed energy weapons that can fire repeatedly in short periods of intense combat against, for example, a wave of low-flying, high-speed cruise missiles. The Navy's new ship design, DD-X, which was awarded to Raytheon, will have an electric drive capable of producing the massive power necessary to run a self-defense system that can shoot down aircraft, large numbers of very-high-speed surface-skimming cruise missiles and, eventually, ballistic missiles. Electric drive ships are the perfect platform for weapons that must fire quickly and repeatedly. But, for the aviation community, the necessity for small payload packages for both laser and HPM weapons that may only need to produce a few pulses of energy during each mission as it attacks other aircraft, missiles or ground targets, will remain.
Boeing is working with U.S. Special Operations Command on the Advanced Tactical Laser to develop a medium-power laser using uncooled optics on a CV-22 tiltrotor, AC-130 gunship or MH-47 helicopter. The device is intended for attacking targets with lethal and non-lethal forces at ranges of up to 10 mi.
Another near-term project is development of a laser weapon envisioned for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. Some of the problems of a small payload are reduced because the aircraft already has a drive shaft from the engine to the bay just behind the cockpit that could be used to produce the electrical energy needed to power a directed energy device. When needed, the area holds a lift fan used for vertical flight. But for other versions of the manned aircraft, the space can be used for a laser weapon using shaft-generated electrical power.
Raytheon has to complete the solutions to two technology problems as they create a powerful laser weapon for the F-35.
First, they have to scale up the power output of their solid-state lasers from about 10 kw. to about 100 kw. in order to kill targets at a tactically significant range. Some analysts set the mark at about 10 km. (6.2 mi.). A solid-state laser is needed for the F-35 ``because its going to be sold in large numbers, it has to be easily maintainable and it must operate without a chemical farm going in and lots of toxic residue coming out,'' a Lockheed Martin official said. ``Right now solid-state lasers don't exist at the power level and beam quality [needed].''
Second, they have to keep the laser beam focused over those long distances.
``The air around a fighter is pretty disturbed because you're trying to operate at around Mach 1,'' he said. ``That, in turn, will disturb the laser beam as you fire it to the target. The air density and the shocks coming off the air vehicle will distort the beam. As part of our laser concept, we will employ adaptive optics to sense what the distortion is and use a conformal mirror. The mirror will predistort the beam so that as it goes through the disturbed air it corrects itself.'' Mirror technology is being developed in the airborne laser project which uses deformable mirrors to limit defraction of the laser over its 250-mi. range.
HPM (which produce spikes of power much like energy generated by radars) is primarily thought of as an anti-electronics weapon. While a laser is a low-frequency weapon requiring perhaps 4 sec. to inflict the necessary damage, HPM consists of high-frequency energy pulses that need only milliseconds to create the needed effect.
An advantage of HPM is that the technology is more mature than solid-state, high-energy lasers. ``HPM will proceed the solid-state lasers by a few years,'' a senior Raytheon official said. ``We have focused a lot of new people and dollars on the technology. But the race is between directed energy technologies and the platforms. If we had a DEW available today, we couldn't fly it because [the Air Force and Navy] don't have a UCAV.
``But the intersection of DEW and UCAVs is a perfect marriage and a growth area. That's how you can prosecute the war in a heavily defended area. Look at the missions for UCAV. Suppression of air defense is number one. You don't want your pilots shot down. You can speculate on what an antielectronics weapon could do to electronics on a SAM battery or an air operations center.''
The Air Force's UCAV that will evolve from Boeing's X-45 program will have the added problem of providing a large enough power supply to drive an HPM device. Part of the solution is achieved by putting the DE weapon on an unmanned aircraft that can fly very close to a well-defended target before loosing its pulse of microwaves, without endangering an aircrew. The effectiveness of an HPM weapon decreases by the square of its distance from the target.
``Where we can pull power off the engine we will,'' Booen said. Lockheed Martin intends to use that strategy with its UCAV designs. ``But in many configurations, we do plan on using batteries. You will see HPM applications within the next 4-5 years.''
Photograph
Photograph: One concept for an aircraft with directed energy weapons shows a laser being fired from the aft position in a C-130 and a high-power microwave device from forward of the wing.
Photograph
Photograph: An anti-personnel device using high-power microwaves to heat water in the skin can inflict enough pain to cause crowds to disperse.
x136 Fulghum, David A. : USAF Acknowledges Beam Weapon Readiness
2002-10
Aviation Week & Space Technology 157.15 (Oct 7, 2002): 27-28.
Abstract (summary)
Directed-energy technology is ready to be used as weaponry and, in a mature state, one device carried by an unmanned aircraft could attack each of 100 targets with 1,000 pulses of energy in a single sortie. HPM (high-powered microwave) also affects a larger area than a bomb, but without harming physical structures or people. A 1-ton bomb creates damage in a radius of about 120 ft. The footprint of a microwave munition is at least 100 times greater than that of a conventional munition. US military research laboratories have demonstrated HPM effects ranging from upsetting to destroying the electronics within military and commercial systems.
Full Text
Directed-energy technology is ready to be used as weaponry and, in a mature state, one device carried by an unmanned aircraft could attack each of 100 targets with 1,000 pulses of energy in a single sortie, says a former director of the U.S. Air Force's high-power microwave program.
"Except for the standard rifle, gun, knife or grenade, virtually all military equipment contains some electronics" that are vulnerable to a large pulse of energy, wrote Air Force Col. Eileen M. Walling. "Military commanders are in a state of virtually total dependence on radios, telephones, satellite communications, computers and faxes for communication with military units." Other targets include artillery targeting devices, guidance and control on precision munitions, and even locomotive engines. She also suggests HPM could be used to protect U.S. satellites and attack those of a foe without creating clouds of debris that could damage other spacecraft.
Having spent most of her career working on directed-energy technology issues, she wrote a research paper on what she considers an underrated weapons technology. Entitled "High Power Microwaves: Strategic and Operational Implications for Warfare," it was published by the Air University's center for strategy and technology in early 2000. Walling is now a division chief in Air Force Materiel Command at Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio.
"The projected maximum capability for a microwave [armed] UCAV is approximately 100,000 pulses of microwave energy (or shots) per mission," Walling wrote. "If one assumes 1,000 pulses per target, it is conceivable that a microwave UCAV could attack on the order of 100 targets per mission. In addition, a microwave system could be used to protect the UCAV from enemy missiles [even] if the enemy has the ability to detect low-observable aircraft."
HPM also affects a larger area than a bomb, but without harming physical structures or people. A 1-ton bomb creates damage in a radius of about 120 ft. "The footprint of a microwave munition is at least 100 times greater than that of a conventional munition," the report states. That may be a bloated number if applied to developmental weapons currently available for use against Iraq, according to other U.S. officials. They usually describe effects in terms of a few thousand feet or less. In fact, the primary stumbling block for directed-energy weapons is achieving sufficient range and power levels to be effective.
U.S. MILITARY RESEARCH laboratories have demonstrated HPM effects ranging from upsetting to destroying the electronics within military and commercial systems, Walling noted. The paper's conclusion, made more than two years ago, is that "high-power microwave technology is ready for the transition to active weapons in the U.S. military." Both Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and the chief of U.S. Air Forces, Europe, Gen. Gregory Martin, have said publicly that unspecified new developmental weapons technology could be used in an attack on Iraq. Facilities that manufacture, store or dispense chemical, biological and nuclear weapons are a "target set" particularly earmarked for energy weapons, according to statements made this summer and fall by U.S. aerospace industry officials. Conventional attacks could leave plumes of lethal agents adrift.
HPM devices have great potential both as offensive and defensive weapons, Walling said. She cited a 1998 Air Force survey--"Directed-Energy Applications for Tactical Airborne Combat"--that found the top four priorities were for microwave weapons (instead of lasers) in the areas of precision-guided munitions, large aircraft self-protection shields, small aircraft self-protection shields and as weapons for unmanned combat air vehicles. As a munition, some developmental systems are believed to be ready for combat in Iraq. Boeing plans to build an HPM weapon into the Block 30 version of its X-45 UCAV.
These weapons also could be built into a pod for carriage on a helicopter or packaged as artillery shells, scatterable mines and 1-ton bombs, the report said. As a defensive system, it contends HPM devices could ward off infrared- and radar-guided missiles. A phased-array antenna allows for rapid retargeting.
The report quickly ticks off the advantages of HPM weapons: They don't rely on exact knowledge of the enemy system. They leave persisting effects in enemy targets that may take weeks to find and repair. Even if enemy systems are turned off, they are still affected. And to counter HPM, the entire system must be hardened, which is a very expensive process.
An energy pulse can get into an enemy system by the "front door," which means its own antenna, dome or other sensor opening; or through the "back door," which includes cracks, seams, trailing wires, metal conduits of seals. Once inside, the emissions can destroy or disrupt integrated circuits, circuit cards and relay switches. The system's own electronic circuitry transmits the pulse, and resulting damage, even deeper into the system.
In the microwave technical community, the ability to scale or increase the effects is often described as "dial a hurt," Walling said. Results depend on the distance between the HPM weapon and the target, the vulnerability of the target, the power generated, and the characteristics of the microwave emission including frequency, burst rate and pulse duration. A rough scale describes four levels of effects:
-- Deny, which involves electronic upset or jamming. It might cause malfunctions within relay and processing circuits.
-- Degrade, which involves locking up a system or limiting its capabilities enough to require rebooting. It can include signal override or turning power on and off at irregular intervals.
-- Damage, which includes permanent effects that "latch up" a system. This can mean damage to components, circuit cards or mother boards, as wells as weeks to diagnose and repair the problems. Because microwaves can enter through multiple entry points, it is likely numerous circuits and components will be damaged.
-- Destroy, which means catastrophic and permanent injury to the system, requiring total replacement.
ANTENNA TECHNOLOGY is crucial for HPM weapons. Field of view for the phased-array emitter is expected to vary from several to tens of degrees. The multi-element design allows it to be built conformally into a pod or UCAV. Because it doesn't require precise aiming, there are far fewer stringent pointing and tracking requirements, Walling said. The microwaves' cone could offer a means to attack multiple targets at once; for example, all of the equipment in an antiaircraft missile site.
The range of HPM weapons has always been a concern. Tests have shown effects at tens to "more than" hundreds of feet. Walling seemed more optimistic. "With current technology, the range for a tactical microwave weapon could be in the tens of kilometers, and future advances . . . should permit the development of even longer ranges," the report said.
Other advantages cited for HPM weapons are that they would be immune to the weather and could produce multiple shots on a single mission. However, the report also alludes to single-shot designs. These latter seem to address concerns that side and back lobes from the generation of an HPM pulse could affect the carrying aircraft's own electronics.
Power levels for HPM weapons are increasing. The report said one microwave source weighing less that 45 lb. radiated 1 gigawatt of power within a few nanoseconds. A 400-lb. system radiated 20 gigawatts. The report noted that Hoover Dam generates 2 gigawatts per day. The HPM weapon would draw power from the air vehicle's engines, which would let it make a number of attacks during a mission.
Illustration
Photo: Photograph: Instead of bombs, some X-45 UCAVs may carry a multi-shot high-power microwave weapon that could paralyze the electronics of 100 targets in one mission.
x137 Doug Beason, Ph.D : The E-BOMB: How America's New Directed Energy weapons Will Change the Way Future Wars Will Be Fought
2005
"THE E-BOMB: How America's New Directed Energy Weapons Will change the Way Future Wars Will Be Fought", Doug Beason, Ph.D., 2005
+++ page ix
Directed Energy (DE) encompasses a wide, cross-disciplinary field of science and engineering. It is nearly impossible to enumerate the many academic and technical disciplines that make up DE, as it includes fields as diverse as physics and engineering to psychology (for studying the Active Denial effect). The people who have advanced the research and development of DE are just as numerous.
...
DE research and development has been shrouded in a veil of secrecy. there are national security reasons for not revealing certain applications or vulnerabilities. My reviewers and I have been careful to ensure that no classified or insider information has been disclosed. I relied on publicly released information as well as interviews to build the story of directed energy.
~Doug Beason
+++ page xii
1973 The air force's classified Project Delta downs an aerial drone with a high-energy laser.
1976 Army shoots down a drone and a helicopter at Redstone arsenal with an Avco electric discharge laser (EDL)
1977 McDermott and his team invent the COIL (chemical oxygen-iodine laser)
1978 Navy shoots down an army TOW missile with a TRW 400-kilowatt deuterium fluoride (DF) laser at San Juan Capistrano
1983 Airborne Laser Lab downs an AIM-9B Sidewinder missile with a CO2 laser
1993 USAF establishes the Airborne Laser System Program Office at the Phillips Lab
2001 Defense Department declassifies Active Denial, the first nonlethal DE antipersonnel weapon
2002 Army's THEL laser destroys Katyshu rockets, artillery rounds, and mortar shells at White Sands Missile Range
2003 ZEUS, the Army's anti-land mine laser, deployed to Afghanistan
2006 NIRF, the navy's anti-IED (improvised explosive device) high-power microwave, scheduled for deployment in Iraq
+++ page 9
Directed Energy (DE) weapons -- lasers, high-power microwaves (HPMs), and particle beams -- have come of age. Over the past two decades, directed energy power has increased by nine orders of magnitude -- over a billion times -- from millwatt to megawatt.
+++ page 10
National leaders will soon ahve the abiliyt to instantly deter threats anywhere in the world with infinite precision at the speed of light. The dynamic changes this will make to international relations will reverberate throughout American society. It will transform our way of life.
This is because directed energy is more than a new weapon in the warrior's arsenal. It's about a completely new way of thinking, a new way of employing both strategic and nonlethal force, and interacting in the international community.
+++ page 11
The date for this scenario? Summer 2001 -- months before the September 11 terorist attack on the World Trade Center.
The place? White Sands, New Mexico, only miles from the Trinity site, birthplace of the world's first atomic blast, another revolution in military affairs.
To date, over 30 Katyusha rockets have been shot down in realistic scenarios such as this by THEL -- tactical high-energy laser, the world's first high-energy laser weapon developed by the U.S. army and funded by the Israeli government for deployment along Israel's borders.
+++ page 12
Largely shrouded in highly classified environment, directed energy weapons research is conducted by a cadre of closed-mouthed technical wizards.
+++ page 171
On August 21, 2003, the U.S. army and Irsraeli Ministry of Defense announced the slection of NOrthrop Grumman Corporation's design for MTHEL, the mobile tactical high-energy laser, a protoypte laser weapon capable of shooting down short-range rockets and artillery. [Northrop Grumman, press release, August 21, 2003.] MTHEL is an advanced, mobile version of the THEL, an advanced concept technology demonstrator (ACTD) initiated in 1996 by the Defense Department and subsequently tested at the army's White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico.
THEL was designed and built by an international team led by Northrop Grummand, including Ball Aerospace and Brashear LP, with several Israeli companies, including Electro-Optic Industries, Israel Aircraft Industries, Yehud Industrial Zone, RAFAEL, and Tadiran.
+++ page 181
The ABL (airborne laser) uses a weapons-class laser system, but it has to be carried in the most heavily modified 747 ever built. The present result is a platform that is loaded to the max, with little margin to add additional weight, say laser fuel, to lase longer, since adding weight cuts down on the time the ABL can stay in the air. Adding a refueling capability will extend the time the ABL can spend in combat, but the extra time also stresses the crew and airframe.
+++ page 182
Advance tactical laser (ATL), the shorter-range, tactical airborne COIL laser system, began as an engineering feat looking for an application.
...
High-power microwaves in the form of long-wavelength radars achieved weapons-class power levels decades ago. But reducing the size of the system to something smaller than a battleship has kept the technology off the battlefield for years -- until the Active Denial effect was discovered and exploited.
+++ page 185
Recall that lasers and microwves are just manifestations of the same thing, the electromagnetic spectrum. Lasers and HPM both consist of photons, or electromagnetic waves that have different wavelengths. Laser wavelengths run from ultraviolet to infrared -- from 0.4 to0.7 microns (or 0.16 millionths of an inch to 0.28 millionths of an inch), while high-power microwaves are generally defined as having wavelengths of anywhere from a meter to a cenimeter (or 3 feet to a third of an inch). That covers just a small part of th electromagnetic (EM) spectrum.
+++ page 186
The interaction of radio waves -- {long part of the EM spectrum the covers wavelengths from a tenth of a centimeter [EHF, or extremely high frequency wves) down to wves over 100 kilometers in length [VLF, or very low frequency]} -- with matter is well known and has been documented for years. ... [W]aves of the electromanetic spectrum generally have to be the same size of the target or object ot cause any damage. In a simplified view, lasers burrow into solid material quite well because their wavelengths are about the same size as molecultes. Lasers can thus deposit their energy and "resonate" with the size of the solid material they hit, including metals.
On the other hand, although high-power microwaves can penetrate building walls and sirupt computers, they can't penetrate metals and don't do much damage to things like trucks or missiles. Instead, they interact with targets that are the same size of its wavelength (meters to millimeters), such as human skin and sires in electronics. This coupling, a measure of the amount of interaction, is greater for things that are the same size as an HPM wavelength.
This means that radio waves don't interact efficiently with targets unless they are the same size. And since radio waves are hundreds of meters to hundreds of kilometers long, they pass through most material and aren't much of a threat.
High-power microwave wavelengths are the longest part of the EM spectrum that can be used effectively as a weapon.
+++ page 188
Free electron lasers (FEL) represent a unique way of creating laser radiation without the use of chemicals, crystals, or any of the traditional means of generating beams. They are classed as electric lasers and can produce any wavelength, from extreme ultraviolet to microwaves.
+++ page 190
An FEL is essentially an electric laser; the laser light is created by an accelerating electron beam as it "wiggles" back and forth through a series of alternating magnets...
+++ page 213
Laser power has increased over a billion times in the past four decades, allowing laser weapons to soon be fielded in the air (ABL, ATL),on the ground (MTHEL, ZEUS), and within a decade or so on the sea (FEL).
Research in millimeter wave technology, an extremely short-wave version of the radio frequency spectrum, produce ADS (Active Denial System), the world's first long-range, nonlethal antipersonnel weapon that no only gives war fighters the option for assessing the intent of the attackers but also proivides a clear option between two wildly disparate options of shouting at people and shooting them.
+++ page 214-216
Lasers and high-power microwaves are simply different manifestations of the electromagnetic spectrum. They both consist of photons -- bundles of electromagnetic energy -- and the only difference between the two is that they have different energy, a function of wavelength, or equivalent frequency.
Because of this difference in energy, lasers and high-power microwaves have to be created in different ways. In addition, they propagate through the atmosphere and in space differently, and they interact with targets differently.
Laser wvelengths are as much as 10,000 times smaller than microwaves. As such, they diffract up to 10,000 times less than microwaves, which allows lasers to propagate up to 10,000 times farther than a similarly generated microwave to deposit the same energy on a target. This allows lasers to use high-precision reflecting mirrors to redirect their devestation throughout the battlefield, and with the use of space-based relay mirrors, perhaps even around the globe.
However, lasers scatter in the atmosphere more than microwaves do because the laser wavelength is about the same size as atmospheric gas molecules.
Finally, when a laser hits a target, it tends to heat up the target material and burn away layer anfter layer, producing a copious plume of plasma. The ABL uses this heat-producing mechanism to weaken the skin of a ballistic missile around the missile's fuel tank, allowing the tank's internal pressure to explode; MTHEL uses its laser's heating mechanism to cause a rocket warheat to explode.
On the other hand, because the wavelength of a high-power microwave is so much larger than that of a laser, the HPM interacts with the electronics and circuits of a weapon.
...
However, microwaves are not yet ready for prime time. Much work needs to be accomplished increating microwve power and shrinking the infrastructure that generates HPM...
Active Denial uses a high-frequency version of HPM caled millimeter waves to heat up a minuscule depth of a person's skin to create a "flee" effect. It provides an ultraprecise, unique, nonlethal means of countering personnel actions.
Despite the outward dissimilarities between lasers and HPM, their similarities far outweigh their perceived differences:
- They both exploit parts of the electromagnetic spectrum.
- They are both impervious to the effects of gravity or ballistic motion.
- They are both ultraprecise, allowing for enormous amounts of energy to be applied exactly wehre the war fighter wants. This is in contrast to kinetic energy precision weapons, which although relatively accurate ... may have devastating, unintended collateral effects -- such as death -- due to blast and fragments.
And the most important apsect of directed energy weapons is the best feature of all: their speed. Kinetic energy weapons reach their target at the speed of sound, or in the case of ballistic missiles, at velocities up to Mach 20, or 20 times the speed of sound, enabling them to hit targets around the globe on the order of 45 minutes.
...
[H]aving an ultraprecise wapon capable of striking around the globe almost instantaneously, in less than a second, provides the technological advantage needed to defeat the next generation of adversaries.
And that advantage is only provided by directed energy weapons capable of engaging the enemy at the speed of light.
x138 Andre Gsponer : Fourth Generation Nuclear Weaspons: Military effectivenss and collateral effects.
2008
Fourth Generation Nuclear Weaspons: Military effectivenss and collateral effects.
Andre Gsponer
http://arxiv.org/abs/physics/0510071
Independent Scientific Research Institute
Box 30, CH1211
Geneva12, Switzerland
Version ISRI0503.17
February 2, 2008
Abstract
The paper begins with a general introduction and update to Fourth Generation Nuclear Weapons (FGNW), and then addresses some particularly important military aspects on which there has been only limited public discussion so far. These aspects concern the unique military characteristics of FGNWs which make them radically different from both nuclear weapons based on previous generation nuclearexplosives and from conventional weapons based on chemicalexplosives: yields in the 1 to 100 tons range, greatly enhanced coupling to targets, possibility to drive powerful shapedcharge jets and forged fragments, enhanced prompt radiation effects, reduced collateral damage and residual radioactivity, etc.
+++ page 3
First generation: 6 kg Pu ~= 10 kt yield at 10% efficiency
Fourth generation: 25 mg DT ~= 1 ton yield at 50% efficiency
+++ page 8
[A] two-stage H-bomb demonstrates that a powerful source of X-rays can be used to produce mechanical work, i.e., to strongly compress the material of the secondary. This leads to other possible applications, where the ablation pressure is used to accelerate a missile or a spacecraft (nuclear-driven rocket), or to squeeze a shape-dcharge liner (nuclear-driven plasma-jet).
+++ page 9
[T]hird generation nuclear weapons require a fission-explosive as trigger, which implies that their yield tends to be too high for battlefield uses, and that they necessarily produce large-scale radioactive pollution, etc.
As will be seen in the sequel of this paper, most third generation concepts can be reconsidered in the context of fourth generation nuclear weapons. This is because the suppression of the fission-explosive trigger, and the reliance on fusion rather than fission as the main source of yield in FGNWs, enable to envisage devices of much lower yield and much reduced radiological impact.
+++ page 11
There is no standard definition of fourth generation nuclear-weapons. Nevertheless, for the purpose of this paper, we may use either of the two definitions:
- "Nuclear explosive devices based on atomic and nuclear processes that are not restricted by the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT)," or
- "Nuclear explosive devices based on low-yield thermonuclear pellets triggered by compact non-fission
primaries."
The second definition recognizes the technical fact that radically new, but realistic, types of nuclear weapons will most probably use highly-compressed deuterium-tritium pellets as the main source of their explosive energy. This means that while fission was the main source of yield in the first three generations, the main source of yield in the fourth generation will be the fusion reaction...
+++ page 17-19
To ignite the pellet after compression, a different method is required because ignition has to be achieved on a much shorter timescale than compression. For example, while a 1 MJ energy laser pulse of a few nanosecond duration is suitable for compression, ignition may require a pulse of only 1 kJ energy, but of a duration several thousand times shorter, i.e., less than one picosecond. Thus, while high-energy lasers are needed for compression, high-power lasers are required for ignition.
+++ page 27-28
[S]ince the kinetic energy of the expanding materials of a nuclear bomb generally corresponds to a small fraction of the radiated energy, the immediate vicinity of a nuclear explosive is that of an extremely-intense pulsed-source of radiations. Depending on the type of the bomb, the dominant kinds of emitted radiations are as follows:
- Hot fission bomb: soft X-rays and some fission neutrons;
- H-bomb: soft X-rays and some fission and fusion neutrons;
- Pure fusion bomb: 14 MeV neutrons and soft X-rays;
- Pure isomer bomb: 0.1 to 5 MeV gamma-rays;
- Pure positron bomb: 0.511 MeV gamma-rays;
- Pure antiproton bomb: ~= 200 MeV pions and gamma-rays.
+++ page 28-30
In the case of nuclear explosives the situation is more complicated because the different kinds of radiations can have a variety of effects, especially if they are very penetrating, as is the case for high-energy neutrons and gamma-rays. The most important of these effects are as follows:
- Generate a fireball (in air or a material). This is primarily the effect of the soft X-rays
which have a relatively short mean-free path in any material, including air. The material will heat up and the resulting fireball will radiate longer wavelength electromagnetic energy, i.e., a heat wave leading
to various thermal effects.
- Launch a shockwave (in air or in a material). This is primarily the result of the expansion of the soft X-rays generated fireball into the surroundings, which launches a shock wave leading to blast effects.
- Heat the surface of a material. Hard X-rays and low-energy gamma-rays able to propagate over some distances in low-density intervening materials (e.g., air) will be absorbed at the surface of any high-density material.
- Ablate a material and produce a shock wave in it. If surface heating is sufficiently strong, the material will vaporize (i.e., "ablate") and by reaction (i.e., "rocket effect") a large pressure will be exerted on it, launching a shock-wave into the material.
- Accelerate or compress a material. If the ablation pressure is sufficiently strong, a material can be accelerated to high velocity by rocket-effect; and if the ablation pressure is simultaneously exerted on all sides, a material can be compressed to high-density as is the case of the secondary in a two-stage thermonuclear weapon.
- Transfer momentum to a material. Either directly through the effect of radiations, or indirectly by means of shock waves propagating through an intervening medium, momentum can be transferred to a material which can be directly accelerated to high velocity without being ablated.
- Heat the volume of a material. Penetrating high-energy radiations (neutrons, pions, or high-energy gamma-rays) will easily cross a low-density intervening medium such as air and deposit their energy deep into any high-density material. As a result, a substantial (i.e., centimeter to meter-thick) layer of a bomb-irradiated material can be brought to a temperature sufficiently high for it to melt, vaporize, or even explode.
- Energize a working material. A special case of volume heating is that in which a "working material" is intentionally placed near a nuclear explosive in order to heat it to high-temperature so that it can do mechanical work on other materials. This is the nuclear analog of a steam machine, in which
super-heated water (i.e., steam) is used to produce motion.
- Forge and project missiles. A superheated working material can be used to forge a material into a missile and project it to a large distance.
- Form and send high-velocity jets. A super-heated working material can be used to form and send high-velocity (plasma) jets to some distance.
This list calls for three remarks:
1. The above list includes only the primarily "mechanical" and "thermodynamical" effects of nuclear explosives. Important non-thermo-mechanical effects such as the production of an electromagnetic-pulse
affecting electronic equipments, and the prompt or delayed radiations affecting living bodies (and electronic equipments to some extent), can be considered as collateral effects in that perspective.
2. As was stressed in the introduction to this section, many physical processes (such as energy and momentum transfer, transformation of kinetic into internal energy, etc.) have to be simultaneous taken into account, so that none of the effects in the list are "pure effects" that would be fully independent
from the other effects.
3. Because they produce mainly blast and thermal effects, first and second generation nuclear weapons can basically be considered as gigantic conventional weapons � except of course for their radioactive fallout and other nuclearradiation effects.
+++ page 39-31
[C]onventional explosives, and first and second generation nuclear explosives, primarily couple their energy to the target by means of shock-waves propagating through an intervening medium: air, water, earth, rocks, etc. This means that the coupling of these weapons can be qualified as indirect, independently on whether the target is (relatively) close or distant from the point of
explosion.
In the case of fourth generation nuclear explosives, however, the coupling can be qualified as direct, unless the target is sufficiently far away from the point of explosion that the radiations are absorbed in the intervening medium before interactingwith the target. In otherwords, the fact that these weapons are primarily very intense sources of penetrating radiations means that they can produce direct
work on the target, and therefore induce a very different response than if the target was just hit by a shock wave.
+++ page 31
[W]hen a shock wave strikes a high-density material after propagating in a lower density medium (e.g., striking the ground after propagating through air) most of the energy in the shock wave is reflected, and only a small fraction of the energy of the initial shock wave is given to secondary shock waves propagating through the target material. Consequently, as is well known, indirect coupling by means of shock waves is very poor, because such waves are reflected at the boundaries between low and high-density materials. For example, for both conventional and current generation nuclear weapons, less than 10% of the energy striking a relatively heavy target (e.g., a main battletank, a bunker, or the ground) is actually coupled to it, even for explosions very close to the target, i.e., "surface bursts." As a matter of fact, for ideal (absolutely rigid) materials, incoming shock waves are fully reflected.
+++ page 32
Let us suppose that the yield froman idealized DT-based FGNWconsists of about
20% in soft X-rays and 80% in 14 MeV neutrons. Let us also take into account that relative to a surface at some distance from the point of explosion, 50% of each of these radiations will flow forwards, and 50% backwards.
If we suppose that this weapon has a yield in the range of a few tons, and is detonated in air at a relatively short distance from a target, say a few meters, most of the forwards going X-rays will reach the target where they will heat the surface, which may melt or vaporize up to the point of launching a shock into it. Because that shock is produced directly on the target, it will be much stronger that if it have produced indirectly by means of a shock wave propagating through air, as well as much stronger that if it would have been produced by the expanding fireball hitting the target.
The main effect, however, will come from the neutrons. Not just because they correspond to a circa five times larger source of energy, but because neutrons can easily penetrate inside any material where they can deposit their energy locally and produce volume heating of the material. This means that the coupling can be very high, since there is little reflection in comparison to shock waves, and little losses in comparison to surface effects where part of the absorbed energy is back-radiated or lost as kinetic energy of the ablated material.
+++ page 32-35
As an example, Fig. 5 shows the neutron heating effect of a 1 ton equivalent point source of 14 MeV neutrons detonated 1 meter away from a thick slab of polyethylene (CH2), taken as representative (from the neutron-heating point of view) of the light materials used in modern multi-layered tank armor. As can
be seen, heating is maximum at about 2 cm below the surface, and then decays exponentially with a half-length of about 10 cm. Therefore, the energy deposited in the first 10 cm has a density of about 0.5 kJ/cm3, more than enough to vaporize thematerial. Moreover, if the point of explosion is put at 30 cm rather than 100 cm, or if the explosive yield is increased from 1 to 10 tons, the energy density would become comparable to that of the detonation products of a powerful chemical explosives.
The same neutron heating calculation can be repeated with other materials: earth, concrete, aluminum, iron, uranium, etc. The result is that the magnitudes, as well as the distributions with depth, are generally rather similar to those of lightweight materials such as CH2, despite that in heavier materials the nuclear interactions of neutrons are very different from those in lightweight materials (i.e., much less elastic scattering, but more inelastic scattering instead). It is only for very heavy material, or in materials such as uranium where 14 MeV neutrons can induce fission, that the magnitude of energy deposition can be larger by a factor of two or more.
To summarize, and to phrase the results in a simplified form because what matters here are orders of magnitude rather than high precision, one has found that:
- Because most of the energy of a DT-based FGNW is in the form of highly penetrating neutrons, almost all of the forwards going energy is coupled into any target located less than a few meters away from the point of detonation. This implies a coupling coefficient of almost 50%, that is ten times higher than for any conventional or previous generation nuclear weapons;
- The combined surface and volume heating effects of a 1 ton FGNW detonated 1 meter away from any solid target leads to an energy deposition of about 1 kJ/cm3 in the first 10 cm of any material.
To make some further simplifications, this means that the energy deposition by 14 MeV neutrons is comparable to that of myriads of "femto" kinetic-energy or shaped-charge penetrators, and that while a 1 ton chemical explosion 1 m away from a 10 cm thick steel plate will barely damage it, a 1 ton FGNW explosion at the same 1 m distance will burn a 1 m2 hole through it.
+++ page 41
The mechanical and thermal effects of conventional and nuclear weapons are
well-known. For instance, their scaling laws with explosive yield are
simple power laws: direct proportionally (�proportional Y -1) for thermal effects, and third-root dependence (�proportional Y -1/3) for blast overpressure. The factor of three difference in the exponent of these powerlaws makes that, in comparison to blast effects, thermal effects are generally negligible in conventional explosives, but dominant inMt-yield nuclear explosives.which are in fact gigantic incendiary bombs [60]. This means that for kt-yield nuclear weapons, and FGNWs with yields between 1 and 100 tons, both effects should be taken into consideration.
A first significant difference between DT-based FGNWs and all other types of explosives is that up to 80% of the yield is in form of high-energy neutrons, so that only about 20% of the total yield contribute directly to heat and blast effects. With proper scaling, this factor of 5 difference means that a FGNW will have a factor of 5 smaller incendiary effect, and a factor �{cubeRoot(5)} = 1.7 reduced blast effect -- provided [one] assumes that the energy of the neutrons will be absorbed either in the intended target, or else in a large volume of air that will not be sufficiently heated to significantly contribute to the heat and blast waves. One can therefore conclude that for a given total yield, FGNWs will have somewhat reduced collateral effects in terms of heat and blast.
+++ page 42
However, direct-coupling to a finite-size target has a 1/(r2) dependence on the distance r between the point of explosion and the surface of the target, and this distance should be on the order of a few meters at most for a circa 1 ton FGNW to be effective. This requires truly high accuracy in delivery, and a corresponding accuracy in the knowledge of the target coordinates.
Finally, as with all types of explosiveweapons, debris will be sent at random to large distances from the target. But since the kinetic energy available for sending these debris is directly related to blast energy, this collateral effect should be proportionally reduced in FGNWs.
+++ page 42-43
One can therefore find the distance below which the "instant permanent incapacitation" is close or equal to 100% :
1 ton FGNW: more than 10�000 rad below 100 m,
> 24 oC body temperature rise,
> 99% lethal within 1 hour.
And the distance beyond which the probability of survival is higher than 50% :
1 ton FGNW: less than 300 rad beyond 300 m,
1 oC body temperature rise,
< 50% lethal within 1 month.
In these two boxes, the instantaneous full-body temperature rise produced by the given dose is calculate in order to provide an intuitive explanation for the prompt biological effect of high-doses of radiations. As can easily be understood, an instantaneous full-body temperature rise from 37 to about 60oC will have a very big impact on physiology, which explains the immediate loss of consciousness and nearly instantaneous death. On the other hand, a 1oC temperature rise will not have such a strong physiological effect, and death will be due to radiation sickness, which can be medically treated to some extent.
+++ page 44-45
[T]he comparison is useful to highlight the considerably smaller radioactive burden induced by FGNWs relative to the previous generations of nuclear weapons. It can also be inferred that:
- Tritium dispersal and induced ground-radioactivity will to a large extent not impair further military action;
- Just as it was the case with the use of depleted-uranium weapons, it will be possible for the proponents of FGNWs to argue that the radiological burden due to their use could be in some way tolerable;
- Many political leaders and large fractions of the public opinion may not object to the long term radiological impact of FGNWs;
- In any case, with a tritium content of about 15 mg per ton explosive equivalent, there will be 15 kg of tritium in an arsenal equivalent to one million 1-ton-FGNWs, that is about the same tritium inventory as in one single full-size thermonuclear reactor. Acceptance of civilian fusion power will therefore be linked to that of FGNWS.
No comments:
Post a Comment