Laser-Satellite Test Falls Short

An Army experiment involving the targeting of an Air Force satellite by a powerful laser produced no useful data on the laser’s lethality, failing to meet the experiment’s principal goal, according to defense and congressional officials. Word of the setback seeped out two days after the Defense Department pronounced the experiment a success because the laser at White Sands Missile Range, N.M., was able to strike the satellite as planned when it flew 260 miles overhead last Friday. The laser, which was ostensibly designed to assess how vulnerable U.S. military satellites are to ground-based lasers, was able to hit the satellite with a relatively low-power beam, spokesman Robert Potter said. But the satellite was unable to transmit any data during the moments when the laser struck it with a beam of gradually increasing intensities.