美军机载激光重点项目汇编.docx

Airborne Laser LaboratoryThe Airborne Laser Lab is a modified KC-135 used for flight testing. Similar to the commercial Boeing 707, the slightly smaller KC-135 was designed to military specifications and operated at hight gross weights. The initial flight of a KC-135A took place on August 31, 1956, and the USAF accepted its first one on January 31, 1957. By 1966, 732 KC-135Aa had been built and the aircraft had become the USAFs standard tanker. It was also used for transporting cargo or personnel and by 1970 was serving in other roles, too, including reconnaissance, electronic intelligence and project testing.The NKC-135A (S/N 55-3123) is one of 14 KC-135As permanently converted for special testing. It was extensively modified by the Air Force weapons Labratory at Kirtland AFB, New Mexico, and used in an 11-year experiment to prove a high-energy laser could be operated in an aircraft and employed against airborne targets. During the experiment, the Airborne Laser Lab destroyed five AIM-9 Sidewinder air-to-air missiles and a Navy BQM-34A target drone.In the early 1950s, Air Force Office of Scientific Research [AFOSR ] funded research led to the development of the MASER (Microwave Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation) by Dr. Charles Townes. Further research by Dr. Townes and a colleague, Dr. Arthur Schawlow, led to work on the principles of the LASER (Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation). For his work on the maser and laser, Dr. Townes shared the Nobel Prize in physics in 1964.In 1962 the Department of Defenses Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) funded research at the Air Force Special Weapons Center (AFSWC) on the potential military use of lasers. After early tests with ruby lasers proved disappointing the hopes of laser advocates surged in the mid 1960s when advances were made in the development of a gas carbon dioxide laser. In 1967, scientists made another large step forward with the invention of the gas dynamic laser, an imp