Kauai-based laser-armed drone sought to shoot down missiles

The U.S. Missile Defense Agency wants the unmanned aircraft industry to provide high-­flying, long-endurance drones, one based on Kauai, to test advances in laser technology to shoot down ballistic missiles.

The “request for information” sent out this month seeks an unmanned aerial vehicle in about 2023 that has greater capabilities than some of the well-known UAVs in use now, including a payload capacity of at least 5,000 pounds and as much as 12,500 pounds, and the ability to carry and provide power for a laser weapon.

The UAV drone would need the ability to operate at altitudes greater than 63,000 feet and fly more than 1,800 miles to its patrolling station and circle there at least 36 hours.

Both the Pacific Missile Range Facility on Kauai and Edwards Air Force Base in California are named as operating locations.

Using UAVs to shoot down intercontinental ballistic missiles in the boost phase — or when rockets are firing to propel the missile into space — would provide an additional layer of defense to the 36 ground-based interceptors in Alaska and California and protect Hawaii and the mainland from North Korean threats. That number will increase to 44 by the end of this year.

“The current path that we are on with both theater ballistic missile defense and ballistic missile defense for the homeland against the ICBM threat is a very expensive approach,” Adm. Bill Gortney, the now former head of North American Aerospace Defense Command, told Congress in 2016. “We are shooting down with very expensive rockets … and we are only engaging it in midcourse (of flight).”

The nonprofit Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance said the ground-based interceptors cost about $80 million apiece.

Gortney said the United States needs to engage ICBMs in the early boost phase as well, and that’s why the “laser approach that MDA is doing is so important.” The idea would be to “knock down the (enemy missile) raid count and then continue to engage it in midcourse.”

The Pentagon said a $54 million budget request for 2018 will let the Missile Defense Agency continue developing a low-power laser demonstrator.

The Defense Department spent $4.1 billion on a 2002-2011 effort to test the world’s first airborne megawatt-class laser aboard a Boeing 747-400, a program eventually deemed too costly and impractical to shoot down ICBMs.

“The MDA is developing highly efficient electric lasers that, when combined with the potential benefits of operation on high-­altitude, low-mach airborne platforms, will significantly reduce the complexity and cost of future directed energy weapons,” the agency said on its website.

The missile defense group said it is exploring two “promising high-­energy laser candidates”: the Diode Pumped Alkali Laser and the Fiber Combing Laser.

“In the 2025 timeframe, our goal is to integrate a compact, efficient, high-power laser into a high-­altitude, long-endurance aircraft capable of carrying that laser and destroying targets in the boost phase,” the agency said.

What type of UAV the agency wants to consider is unclear, with some well-known remotely piloted aircraft having less capability than that being sought.

The turboprop MQ-9 Reaper, for example, can operate up to 50,000 feet for longer than 27 hours and has a 3,850-pound payload capacity. The turbofan RQ-4 Global Hawk has an endurance of more than 34 hours, can carry a 3,000-pound payload and has a 60,000-foot operating ceiling.