Northrop's Guardian anti-missile defence system for airliners takes off

Los Angeles, USA: A FedEx MD-10 cargo jet, equipped with Northrop Grumman's Guardian anti-missile system for airliners, took off from Los Angeles International Airport on a commercial flight on January 16. The Guardian system is designed to defend airliners against shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles during takeoffs and landings. The flight also marks the start of operational testing, and evaluation, of the laser-based system.

The Guardian system, after detecting a missile launch, directs a laser to the seeker system located on the head of the missile in order to disrupt its guidance signals. According to Northrop, the laser is invisible and safe for human eyes. The Guardian system is a derivative of military technologies.

The flight marks the start of a test phase, due to conclude in March 2008, during which nine MD-10 freighters equipped with the system will operate on regular commercial service. This first, and subsequent flights of all nine freighters, will allow Northrop to collect "valuable logistics data while operating Guardian on aircraft in routine commercial service," according to Northrop Grumman's Defensive Systems Division vice-president and general manager, Robert L. DelBoca.

These tests should eventually lead to the induction of the Guardian, and similar systems, on all passenger airliners. According to analysts, eventual induction of such systems on all 6,800 commercial U.S. airliners currently in operation, could alone cost billions of dollars. This raises a number of issues, one of them being cost sharing. Also, there are issues with respect to operation and maintenance of such systems, and the effect that these will have on aircraft downtime, which are yet to be fully resolved. Northrop expects to tackle these ssues in the current test phase.

So far, outside of a combat zone, the only attack launched on a civilian airliner has been the one in November 2002, when two shoulder-launched SA-7 surface-to-air missiles narrowly missed an Israeli airliner in Mombasa, Kenya, as it took off.

According to Northrop Grumman, a 16-month flight test program, preceding the flight of the FedEx MD-10 on 16th January, has seen the testing of the system with a ground-based "electronic missile surrogate" which was used to simulate launches. Northrop said that each time Guardian functioned as designed, detecting the simulated launch and mock missile successfully.