US laser weapon test successful

Los Angeles: A high-powered laser beam has destroyed a target missile in flight off the Central California coast the US Air Force announced Friday. It is being looked upon as a milestone in the evolution of a futuristic missile defence system.

Sequence of events after laser firing

According to statements from the USAF and two aerospace companies involved in the programme, a laser weapon mounted on a Boeing jumbo jet tracked the missile as it accelerated over the ocean then fired an energy beam on the missile, which cracked and broke up because of intense heating.

The test comes as a belated boost for a programme that has already cost the American taxpayer billions in cost overruns and has been consigned to the R&D category –as opposed to a system that could be produced and fielded operationally.

US defence secretary Robert Gates sharply slashed the budget for the programme calling the concept "fatally flawed."

Analysts say that results are emerging two years too late to be of any help for the programme.

The airborne laser programme was one of several that owed their origins to US president Ronald Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative in 1983 - the much-ballyhooed "Star Wars" programme that was ultimately junked as being too impractical and expensive.