Images
Map
| |
|
MIRACL
|
Specifications:
|
|
|
- 2.2 MW DF (Deuterium Fluoride) laser
- Highest power chemical laser in western hemisphere.
- Highest average power laser in the US
- Produces CW on 10 lasing lines between 3.6 and 4.2 mm.
- 70 seconds maximum lase duration
- 21 X 3 cm beam in resonator, reshaped to 14 X 14 cm
|
- closed loop DF laser 726 x 500 112,369
- Image of part of the laser 251 x 392 26,631
from FAS
- Sea Lite beam director (363 x 458 154,301) (also known as Skylite). From HELSTF
- SEALITE Beam Director (SLBD) 608 x 500 64,575 contains a lighweight 1.8 m mirror
created by Réosc
- 400 x 500 62,890
MIRACL destroys a short-range Katyusha rocket, only a small fraction of the MIRACL's power was used, corresponding
to the power that could be produced by a compact and mobile tactical laser system. This test
was part of the Nautilus program, a THEL precursor.
from Nautilus Lasers Are Lethal, February 1996
- Another view of missile destruction,
note the bright white spot on the tip of the target rocket is the laser beam. 214 x 319 31,384
This was the first time a laser engaged and destroyed a short-range rocket in flight.
This was also the first time that a warhead was exploded in flight by any developmental or operational weapon system.
from Defence Link, April, 1996
- HELLO 300 x 379 95,834 - High-Energy Laser Light Opportunity. Civilian uses for this laser are part of project (see Popular Mechanics, October 1994).
- HELSTF is host to some 30 types of military and commercial lasers involved in advanced testing
- Laser Hits Orbiting Satellite in Beam Test, Oct 1997 Space Daily
- The former USSR had a similar laser in Douchambe, Tadjikistan at approximately the same time that MIRACL was operational.
(Tom Clancy's "The Cardinal of the Kremlin" has satellite images of the base).
- Successfully fired in 1989 in a test to attempt to intercept high-speed aerial targets.
- Reportedly forced down a Vandal supersonic missile simulating a sea-launched cruise missile at a range "representative of a real tactical scenario".
- Successfully destroyed short-range rocket in flight on Feb. 9, 1996.
- December 1997 : it was fired at a satellite to assess the threat of anti-satellite (ASAT) weapons.
- fired at a satellite
- successfully engaged five BQM-34 drones and a supersonic Vandal missile, at tactically significant ranges.
- Operated like a rocket engine in which a fuel (ethylene, C2H4)
is burned with an oxidizer (nitrogen trifluoride, NF3).
Free, excited fluorine atoms are one of the combustion products.
Downstream from the combustor, deuterium and helium are injected
into the exhaust. Deuterium combines with the excited fluorine to
give excited DF molecules, while the helium stabilizes
the reaction and controls the temperature.
- MIRACL was slightly damaged twice during tests against the Air Force's Miniature Sensor Technology Integration
(MSTI-3) satellite in October, 1997.
The purpose of the tests was to evaluate the effect of the laser on the
satellite's infrared sensors.
When the power was ramped up, a shock wave in the gases
within the DF laser resulted, and caused it to move, which then caused
a small amount of melting inside the device.
From Journal of Aerospace and Defense Industry News, Dec 1997
|
[ Back ] [ Up ] [ Next ]
|
