Non-Subscriber Extract
New US high-energy concept aims to counter man-portable missile threat
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| 28 July 2003 |
By Michael Sirak JDW Staff Reporter, Washington, DC. Additional reporting by Jonathan Weston, JDW Special Correspondent, Washington, DC
Northrop Grumman has disclosed a new directed-energy laser weapon system that it has conceived to defeat small, supersonic missiles targeted at aircraft landing at and taking off from military airfields and civilian airports.
The Hazardous Ordnance Engagement Toolkit (HORNET) is an outgrowth of the company's continued work on the Mobile Tactical High Energy Laser (MTHEL) system for Israel and the US. Like MTHEL, the HORNET would be based on a megawatt-class deuterium-fluoride chemical laser that can shoot a lethal energy beam at the speed of light at a target, said Pat Caruana, vice president of Missile Defense in Northrop Grumman's Space Technology sector.
This quick-reaction capacity, along with the precision and safety attributes already shown by the MTHEL testbed, would make the HORNET a formidable capability to defeat manportable air defence surface-to-air missiles, he said. US defence officials, as well as their civilian air-safety counterparts, say these missiles pose an increasing threat to military and civilian aircraft.
Caruana told JDW the company has done "considerable analysis" of the concept, which it has already briefed to USAF officials and homeland security representatives.
The company believes that one or more strategically placed HORNET units could protect a large military airbase or civilian airport, shielding aircraft while they are most vulnerable at landing and, in particular, at take-off, when they are carrying heavy fuel loads, he said.
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