Reentry Pictures from the Boeing CST-100 Starliner at White Sands

A friend sent these to me.  Sadly, I couldn't be in NM to watch.

US Army Tests Implications of Drone Swarms During Exercises at Fort Bliss, White Sands Missile Range

The U.S. Army has for the first time tested swarms of consumer drones during a major military training exercise and determined the low-cost technology is at a stage where it could be used offensively.

Off-the-shelf drones have brought what was previously complex and expensive technology into the reach of consumers, and the military was curious to see how much of a threat that might pose.

So it brought consumer quadcopters and octocopters to the Network Integration Evaluation war games that concluded earlier this month at White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico, and Fort Bliss, Texas.

During the exercise, which is used by the Army to help evaluate new technology, the drones were deployed as a swarm to simulate a threat. Later, the Army expanded the trials to discover whether it might be able to make use of the same technology.

link.

Upgrade Nearly Complete? US Army to Test Fire High Energy Laser System at White Sands in the Fall

The Army is planning a live-fire test of its High Energy Laser, or HEL, weapons system this fall at White Sands Missile Range, in an effort to test the current state-of-the-art in a technology that has been advancing for the last 15 years.

link.

US Navy Tests SM-6 AAW Missile at White Sands Missile Range

The Navy’s Standard Missile is, as the bland name says, the Navy’s standard missile to defend the fleet against incoming strikes by enemy aircraft and anti-ship missiles. (Attacking enemy ships and ground targets is done by other missiles altogether). In recent years, though, the Raytheon-made missile has branched out. The standard Standard, the SM-2, is a straightforward fleet-defense weapon, with some capability to intercept targets over the land and even hit enemy ships. But the military is developing a long-range, high-altitude SM-3 variant to intercept ballistic missiles as they coast through space.

Then there’s the SM-6, first issued to the fleet last fall. “It’s the latest evolution of the Standard Missile family,” said Navy Cdr. Sidney Hodgson, the deputy program manager for the Standard series. (SM-4 and SM-5 never saw service). “It doesn’t replace the SM-2,” which will stay in service alongside the SM-6, he emphasized, but “it gives you increased firepower, it gives you extended range.”

To save costs, the Standard Missile Six is an unholy hybrid of the long-range rocket motor from the SM-3, the agile aerodynamic body of the SM-2, and the nose of an AMRAAM air-to-air missile, normally carried by fighter planes. It’s the borrowed AMRAAM components in particular that let the SM-6 pick out tricky targets like a cruise missile maneuvering at low altitude and low speed over land. Even in the desert, the land is never as smooth and flat as the sea, so a low-flying target can hide itself amidst the “ground clutter” of natural features — hills, rocks, buildings — that also show up on radar.

“What we were attempting to show was, [given] something that was subsonic, very low, could we discriminate and engage it?” said Raytheon’s senior program director for SM-6, Mike Campisi. “It was wonderful to see.”

link.

US Army Mortar, UAV Shootdown Using Mobile High Energy Laser

US Army Tests Laser Weapon System Mounted on a Truck at White Sands Missile Range

For the first time, the U.S. Army Space and Missile Defence Command used a vehicle mounted high-energy laser to successfully engage more than 90 enemy mortar rounds and flying unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs).

The High Energy Laser Mobile Demonstrator (HEL MD) contracted by Boeing, was tested at White Sands Missile Range and confirms the capability of a mobile laser weapon system to counter rockets, artillery, mortars, UAVs, and reconnaissance sensors mounted on UAVs.

The beam control system (BCS) is a dome-shaped turret that extends above the roof of a 500-horsepower Heavy Expanded Mobility Tactical Truck (HEMTT). The beam director rotates 360-degrees and uses mirrors to point and focus the beam on a target.

[...]

These tests were the first in which HEL MD repeatedly destroyed consecutive rounds of mortars and aerial threats with speed-of-light precision and a high degree of accuracy,” Mike Rinn, vice president, Boeing Directed Energy Systems.

The recent testing utilized a 10 kW class laser which will be upgraded to an 100 kW class laser in subsequent demonstrations.

This joint project is entering its seventh year with a 2013 fiscal year budget of a staggering $US12.4 million.

link.

DARPA/US Navy Successfully Test Fire LRASM Missile From Vertical Launch System Cell

Lockheed Martin successfully launched the first Long Range Anti-Ship Missile (LRASM) Boosted Test Vehicle (BTV) from a MK 41 Vertical Launch System (VLS) canister at White Sands Missile Range, N.M.

During the company-funded test, the MK41 VLS successfully launched the LRASM BTV. The BTV, which includes the proven Vertical Launch Anti-Submarine Rocket (VL/ASROC) Mk-114 rocket motor, ignited successfully, penetrated and exited through the canister cover and performed a guided flight profile similar to a tactical configuration.

The flight test was part of an ongoing Lockheed Martin-funded Offensive Anti-Surface Weapon effort, independent of the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA) LRASM program, focused on shipboard integration of LRASM’s surface launched variant.

Building on the recent push-through testing which proved the missile’s ability to break through the canister cover with no damage to the missile, the BTV launch is also an important risk reduction milestone critical to demonstrating LRASM’s surface launch capability.

LRASM is an autonomous, precision-guided anti-ship standoff missile leveraging the successful Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile Extended Range (JASSM-ER) heritage, and is designed to meet the needs of U.S. Navy and Air Force warfighters.

link.

pop write up.

200 nautical mile stealthy anti-ship missile.  nice.  pair it with a hypersonic missile and...nice.

NorthGrum Solid State Laser Relocating to HELSTF

In cooperation with the U.S. Army’s Space and Missile Defense Command/Army Forces Strategic Command, which operates the test range at White Sands Missile Range in southeastern New Mexico, BAE Systems has contracted with Northrop Grumman to relocate the Joint High Power Solid State Laser (JHPSSL) Phase 3 system from the company’s laser factory in Redondo Beach, Calif., to HELSTF. Field testing is expected to begin this year.

This laser will be integrated with the beam control and command and control systems from another Northrop Grumman-built system, the Tactical High Energy Laser (THEL), to provide the Army with the world’s first high-power, Solid State Laser Testbed Experiment (SSLTE), Northrop Grumman officials say.

The SSLTE will be used to evaluate the capability of a 100kW-class solid-state laser to accomplish a variety of missions. Those results will be the basis for directing future development of solid-state lasers as a weapon system.

“Northrop Grumman will have a lead role in integrating and operating the Army’s solid-state laser test bed,” says Steve Hixson, vice president of Advanced Concepts – Space and Directed Energy Systems for Northrop Grumman’s Aerospace Systems sector.

“Solid-state lasers have achieved militarily useful power levels and packaging densities,” informed Dan Wildt, vice president of Directed Energy Systems. “We have been demonstrating laser performance at HELSTF and other test sites for many years.” These include missiles of various sizes and speeds, helicopters, drones, rockets, artillery, mortar rounds, and submunitions.

Both the relocation of the JHPSSL Phase 3 device and the THEL facility refurbishment are being carried out under an Army contract with BAE Systems, which has overall responsibility for the SSLTE systems engineering and test planning. BAE Systems is also developing a modular and transportable enclosure to house the JHPSSL device and its control room at the site.

Under the JHPSSL program, Northrop Grumman became the first company to reach the 100 kilowatt power level threshold for a solid-state laser. The achievement also included turn-on time of less than one second and continuous operating time of greater than five minutes, with very good efficiency and beam quality.

Must have only been the chemical laser side that shut down. The govies must still be out there in the LSTC.

Good Bye HELSTF

Today, HELSTF is being shuttered. The toxic brew they used for the chemical lasers has been drained and carted off. Today the contractors are being escorted off site. It has been almost 8 years since I left, but in many ways, the camaraderie we had amongst the doers was great and missed. Shooting things down with a freakin flash light (albeit powered by deuterium and fluorine instead of a battery) was one of the kewler things I've done in my career.

I had wanted to walk through the LSTC one last time. And the Test Cells.

Obviously, the Govie management couldn't adapt to the solid state world. That doesn't surprise me.

*sighs*

Goodbye, HELSTF. It was fun. Even if the drive wasn't.

HELSTF Laying Off More

lmost a year after 30 contract employees were laid off at the High Energy Laser System Test Facility, more layoffs were confirmed Wednesday by White Sands Missile Range officials.

However, details regarding the number of affected employees and when those dismissals will begin were not immediately known. Monte Marlin, WSMR spokeswoman, said she was aware of the layoffs but details would have to come from the U.S. Space and Missile Defense Command, the supervising agency for HELSTF.

"HELSTF has long been a part of the White Sands Missile Range family and we support them as we all have to go through this," Marlin said.

Strategic Missile Defense Command officials could not be reached for comment.

The agency's spokesman was attending a professional seminar Tuesday and Wednesday and was not expected back in his Huntsville, Ala. office until today. Additional calls to the agency were not returned.

Representatives for Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., were not immediately aware of the layoffs and were also trying to obtain more information Wednesday.

Alas. It was fun while I worked there, but, truthfully, chemical lasers are not the future of DEWs, soooo...how long until they close the facility since Saint Pete has retired?

Raytheon's Laser Centurion

50 kw, solid state, almost assuredly pulsed and its tied to the same radars and such that the Phalanx point defense system uses. This has a lot more short term promise than the Laser Avenger. The LA was only a one kilowatt laser (now 2): that makes burn through time on anything more than balsa wood or cheap plastic take far too long.

That pointer-tracker looks smaller than THEL's to me, but I could be sizing that up poorly.

I wonder if this is at HELSTF or not.

Oh, note, some of the countermeasures that are present on the THEL wikipedia page don't work: they have been testing some of them (such as reflective coatings AND rotating bodies) for over two decades. The HELs win every time. Huh, who'd over thunk it. Wikipedia has something wrong. Ah well.