Missile Defense Agency Opens Kirtland Facility
KIRTLAND AFB, NM. - Jan. 26, 2004
The Missile Defense Agency (MDA), a Department of Defense organization headquartered in Washington, officially opens its Kirtland facility next week, taking over the renovated one-time wing headquarters building at Wyoming and Gibson.
The 28,000-square-foot, two-story building houses 172 people: 56 military who are part of the Aeronautical Systems Center (ASC), 53 government service workers, and 63 contractors. All are part of the $2.1 billion Airborne Laser (ABL) program.
The phased move from ABL's previous site in a hangar on Target Road on the south side of the base began on Oct. 20 and was completed on Nov. 7. The organization's new home was constructed in 1947 and served at various times as the headquarters for both Sandia Base and what is now the 377th ABW. It has been under renovation for almost three years.
ABL, which began as an U.S. Air Force program in 1996, transitioned from the Space and Missile Systems Center (SMC) to ASC, which oversees combat aircraft ranging from long-range bombers to fighters, on Oct. 12, 2001. Three weeks later, on Nov. 1, 2001, management of the ABL program transitioned from the USAF to the then Ballistic Missile Defense Organization.
The Ballistic Missile Defense Organization became MDA on Jan. 2, 2002, by a special order from Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. The order gave MDA management responsibility for all of the country's missile defense programs.
Under the MDA plan each service will be responsible for a different phase of missile defense. ABL, which is building the world's first combat aircraft to use a laser as a weapon, will be part of the boost-phase segment, responsible for detecting, tracking, and attacking missiles soon after launch.
ABL's first aircraft -- YAL-1A -- will be armed with six modules of the Chemical Oxygen Iodine Laser (COIL), a device invented at Kirtland in 1977 by what was then the Air Force Weapons Laboratory, now a part of the Air Force Research Laboratory.
Six infrared heat seekers strategically placed around YAL-1A's exterior will detect the plume of a newly launched missile. That information will be passed to a carbon dioxide laser atop the aircraft, which will zero in on the missile and provide detailed tracking information.
Once the missile has been confirmed as a potential target, two kilowatt-class lasers aboard YAL-1A will determine the aim spot on the missile and measure the amount of atmospheric disturbance. Compensated imaging technology, developed at Kirtland's Starfire Optical Range in the late 1980s, will provide data allowing ABL's battle management system to correct for the atmospheric turbulence so the COIL's megawatt-class beam can strike the missile's fuel tank, heating the metal skin until it ruptures, in effect causing the missile to kill itself.
ABL acquired what was to become YAL-1A in January 2000. The Boeing 747-400 Freighter came straight off the company facility before it made its first flight as ABL's official aircraft.
In December 2002 it was flown to Edwards AFB, Calif., pending testing and integration of the COIL modules and the sophisticated optical system.
To conform to MDA's management plan, ABL will progress in block development fashion. Block 2004 -- YAL-1A--will begin flying as a test platform with its primary goal the shootdown of ballistic missile over the Pacific Ocean. The Block 2006 aircraft, the next phase, will still be the YAL-1A plane with modifications as determined by the results of the initial tests.
DE RELEASE NO. -2004-03
CONTACT: Ken Englade
PHONE: (505) 846-7681
email:
Kenneth.Englade@Kirtland.af.mil