BEIJING, Nov. 13 (Xinhuanet) -- A Boeing-led team has for the first time fired a powerful laser meant to fly aboard a modified 747 as part of a U.S. ballistic missile defense shield, China Radio International reported Saturday. 
 
The test, dubbed "First Light", lasted only a fraction of a second but gave the project an important boost.

    The laser was shot last week in a 747 fuselage on the ground at Edwards Air Force Base in California.

    The Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency described the event as a "landmark achievement" for the so-called Airborne Laser system.

    The Chemical Oxygen Iodine laser includes optics designed to focus a basketball-sized spot of heat on a missile's skin to rupture it up to hundreds of miles away.

    Pentagon officials envision several such aircrafts flying near North Korea or another potential foe's territory, to detect track and destroy a missile before it releases a warhead that could be tipped with chemical, nuclear or germ weapons.

    US Congress has authorized President George W. Bush's request for more than 470 million US dollars for the program in fiscal 2005, as part of the 10 billion US dollars budgeted for missile defense development and deployment. Enditem 

    (CRIENGLISH.com/Reuters)