<HTML>New Scientist, Article Preview
Microwave-based missile defence for airliners
25 June 2005, Magazine issue 2505
High-power microwave weapons installed at airports could protect jets from shoulder-fired missiles without busting airline budgets.
It is being touted as a cheap and easy way to protect airliners from terrorist attack. High-power microwave weapons installed at airports could protect jets from shoulder-fired missiles without busting the budgets of cash-strapped airlines, says aerospace firm Raytheon.
The US Department of Homeland Security wants to put anti-missile defences on all airliners on domestic flights at a cost, some estimate, of $2 billion per year for the next 20 years. Raytheon Missile Systems based in Tucson, Arizona, says that deploying its ground-based Vigilant Eagle system at the country's 53 biggest airports would cost just $2.6 billion over the same period and protect as many flights.
Vigilant Eagle uses an airport-wide grid of infrared sensors. If two or more sensors spot the distinctive signature of a shoulder-launched missile, a computer control system computes the missile's course and targets it with a microwave beam from a billboard-sized array of transmitters...</HTML>
