First, there's this World Tribune article, "U.S. conducts successful test of anti-ballistic missile laser"

The United States has reported a successful ground-based test of an airborne laser meant to intercept ballistic missiles.

The Missile Defense Agency said the megawatt-class laser underwent a successful test on Nov. 10. The Pentagon agency said the laser was operated in a ground-based demonstration at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif.

Officials said this marked the first time that a directed energy weapon meant for use in a Boeing 747 aircraft has been demonstrated.

The test, which lasted a fraction of a second, involved the simultaneous firing of all six laser modules and associated optics that comprise the Chemical Oxygen Iodine Laser. Officials said the modules,built by Northrop Grumman, performed as expected.

Officials said the test was conducted in the framework of the Airborne Laser project. "It was the first time that multiple modules of the powerful laser had ever been fired while linked together as a single unit," the Missile Defense Agency said in a statement on Nov. 10. "In the test, the laser light produced by the six modules was fired into a wall of metal called a calorimeter or beam dump. The temperature rise of the metal was used to validate that laser power was generated."

The ABL program has undergone a two-year delay in wake of the failure to develop a laser weapon that could be fitted into the nose of a Boeing 747-400F aircraft. The Pentagon has acknowledged that the laser system developed in 2002 was too heavy for flight.

The ABL, a program expected to reach $4 billion through 2008, has been designed to autonomously detect, track and destroy enemy ballistic missiles.

The high-power laser was meant to focus a basketball-sized spot of heat that can destroy a missile in the boost-phase of launch at a range of hundreds of kilometers.

And there's this AviationNow article, "DOD's Directed Energy Roadmap May Be Nearing Completion"

The U.S. Defense Department may be nearing completion of a roadmap on directed energy (DE) programs.

Ron Sega, DOD's director of defense research and engineering, is expected to receive a presentation Nov. 29 on the proposed roadmap, which his office has been developing at the request of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, according to a Pentagon spokeswoman. If Sega endorses the document, it will be delivered to Rumsfeld's deputy, Paul Wolfowitz, for his review.

According to a recent information paper released by DOD's Office of Force Transformation, the roadmap is supposed to provide the department with "a coherent development and fielding strategy for directed energy capabilities." DE systems have potential as "offensive and defensive weapons, sensors, communications and countermeasures for tactical and operational joint forces," the paper says.

A wide range of DE efforts already are being pursued across DOD, including the Missile Defense Agency's Airborne Laser (ABL) program, which plans to mount a Northrop Grumman chemical laser on a Boeing 747-400 freighter to shoot down ballistic missiles. By year's end, the ABL program hopes to achieve first light, on the ground, of the chemical laser and first flight of Lockheed Martin's beam control/fire control system (DAILY, Aug. 20, Sept. 15).

The Army is exploring several DE capabilities, including the Mobile Tactical High Energy Laser (MTHEL), designed to destroy artillery shells, mortars, rockets and unmanned aerial vehicles. The Army hopes to start testing a Northrop Grumman-built MTHEL prototype in about fiscal 2008 (DAILY, Oct. 28).

In December, DOD's Joint High Power Solid State Laser (JHPSSL) program is slated to conduct laboratory demonstrations of three 25-kilowatt solid-state lasers designed by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Northrop Grumman and Raytheon (DAILY, Sept. 29). The tests could lead to the development of more powerful laboratory versions of the electrically driven lasers.