El laboratorio aeronáutico ruso Beriev A-60 se basa en el transporte Ilyushin Il-76MD y fue diseñado para probar láseres en el aire y facilitar la investigación sobre la distribución de rayos láser en la atmósfera superior. Equipado para la caza de satélites, el láser ha sido desarrollado para atacar objetivos en el espacio cercano y se produce en medio de los crecientes esfuerzos de Rusia para desarrollar sistemas de armas antisatélites, un activo fundamental en una futura “gran guerra”.
Entering service in the early 1980s, the Soviet Beriev A-60 airborne laser laboratory was based on the Ilyushin Il-76MD transport and was designed to test lasers while in the air and facilitate research on the distribution of laser beams in the upper atmosphere. Reports in Russian media, citing informed sources, indicated that the military has developed a new laser weapon based after extensive testing undertaken using the Beriev A-60. The new laser has been developed to target satellites in near space, and comes amid Russia’s growing efforts to develop anti satellite weapons systems – a critical asset in a major war with the Western bloc with which tensions have fast been on the rise.
In 2016 Russian defense R&D enterprise NPO Almaz had announced that they were working on an airborne military laser system with similar capabilities to those recently tested by the A-60. The Chemical Automatics Design Bureau and the Beriev Aircraft Company are also involved in the development of the ‘flying laser’ program. The A-60 laser laboratory has been used by the Soviet Union in the late 1980s to test an anti satellite laser weapon, though work on this project stalled following the USSR’s collapse. Russia’s military resurgence in the 2010s saw the program restored, and though several years were lost in the post Soviet era significant progress has since been made.
While the A-60 was used to test prototypes of the new anti satellite laser weapon, a fundamentally new aircraft would need to be designed to eventually deploy the laser in combat. Aircraft deploying these lasers would act as an effective complement to Russia’s growing ground based anti satellite missile capabilities. In February 2018 U.S. Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats cited Russian and Chinese pursuit of antisatellite weapons “as a means to reduce U.S. and allied military effectiveness,” which would be used “to offset any perceived US military advantage derived from military, civil, or commercial space systems.” Russia’s development of laser armed satellite hunting aircraft appears a significant step towards realising Director Coats’ predictions and significantly undermining the heavily satellite reliant U.S. military’s ability to operate worldwide. Whether such a satellite hunting aircraft will enter service alongside the S-500 surface to air missile system, a platform capable of targeting low orbit satellites at extreme ranges set to enter service around 2020, remains to be seen.
