The Long Range Air Launch Target (LRALT) program is managed by the Missile Defense Agency Targets and Countermeasures Directorate and developed for MDA by the US Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center and L-3 Coleman Aerospace. LRALT is based on two Minuteman II second stages taken from deactivated assets. The delivery system is air-extracted from a C-17 for launch on any azimuth. LRALT was developed as a target for realistic testing of the Ballistic Missile Defense System using air launch as a method to relieve the test constraints imposed by fixed ground launch sites.
A demonstration launch of the LRALT was conducted at 12:06 a.m. (EDT) Monday, May 3, 2004. The LRALT missile boosted a simulated reentry vehicle from a point just south of Midway Island to the vicinity of Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands.
In September 2005, as part of MDA's Targets and Countermeasures program team, we provided an LRALT missile that was used in a successful exercise to test the AN/FPS-108 Cobra Dane radar located at Shemya, Alaska and the fire control system of the Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) element of the BMDS.
