ANTI-AIRCRAFT missiles will be rendered powerless against American planes if
a new laser-based aircraft protection system becomes operational.
The new system, which is designed to disable both surface-to-air (SAM) and
air-to-air (ATA) missiles, is being heralded as the countermeasure to trump all
countermeasures. Called the Laser Infrared Countermeasures Flyout Experiment
(LIFE), the $30 million project aims to defend planes against most types
of heat-seeking missile, using intelligent infrared jamming to fend them
off.
Unlike existing countermeasure systems, LIFE scans an incoming missile and
identifies it. Rather than simply looking for the heat from the missile’s
exhaust plume, it uses laser radar (lidar) to examine it and provide detailed
identification—though how it does this remains classified. It can then
choose the most suitable jamming countermeasure to send the missile off
course.
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“The system is closed-loop,” says Cary Dell, spokesman for Lockheed Martin in
Akron, Ohio, the main contractor on the project for the US Air Force Research
Lab at the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, also in Ohio. This means that it can
run automatically, so as soon as it has disabled one missile it can deal with
the next much faster than a person.
Traditional countermeasures try to confuse the missile by putting false
target signals in its path. Although this makes the missile wobble in flight,
and might even break its “lock” on the plane, the missile is still a threat
because it may lock on again.
Anti-aircraft missiles are relatively cheap and widely available. A spokesman
for Britain’s Ministry of Defence says that they are also very effective and
hard to counter. “They are a considerable problem,” he says. “You need only look
at Kosovo to see that. We operated at fairly high altitudes to avoid them.”
If LIFE works in trials later this year, the technology could see
missile-based anti-aircraft technology “left in the dust” by rapidly advancing
high-power tactical laser weapons, according to the aerospace industry journal
Aviation Week. This would herald a new era in which such “directed
energy weapons” become the norm as anti-aircraft weapons.
