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The Vigilant Eagle Airport Protection System is a proposed directed-energy weapon under development by the U.S. military under a Defense Department contract with Raytheon. It would create an invisible microwave dome around an airport that could block missiles heading toward incoming and outgoing aircraft.
Man-portable air-defense systems are shoulder-launched surface-to-air missiles that present a tremendous threat to both civilian and military aircraft. It is estimated 700,000 MANPADs have been built and sold across the world, thousands of which are unaccounted for and sold daily on the black market. The U.S. government says these type of weapons have been used in at least 36 attacks on civilian aircraft in the past three decades.
A successful attack of this kind would cause more than loss of life. The estimated cost of a four-hour operational shut down of an airport is $40 million. This would have an estimated $10 billion impact on the U.S. economy and an estimated $300 billion impact globally.