Reps. Steve Israel, D-N.Y., and Melissa Bean, D-Ill., are drafting legislation that would provide for the installation of experimental anti-missile technology on board commercial flights transporting U.S. troops to the Middle East.

The Northrop Grumman Corp. technology — known as the Guardian System — is an external pod attached to the belly of an aircraft to scan in all directions for incoming missiles. If an incoming projectile is detected, the system’s turret fires an infrared laser at the missile to disrupt its guidance systems and send the weapon off target.

The technology was designed to guard commercial aviation against terrorist use of Man-Portable Air-Defense Systems (MANPADS) — lightweight shoulder-fired heat-seeking missiles. The Guardian systems are currently in the third phase of testing on board commercial cargo planes.

The forthcoming legislation would put the technologies on board some of the 1,500 planes in the civil reserve air fleet — commercial aircraft that are used to transport service men to military environments abroad.

“In my view, these are the perfect aircraft to broaden the deployment of anti-MANPADS technology because they are larger passenger planes and they are also flying into fairly dangerous military environments — not combat environments, military environments” such as military bases, said Israel during a phone interview with CQ Homeland Security. “By narrowing it to planes that are flying DOD missions, we are doing two things: we are reducing the overall cost and we are confusing potential terrorists who want to use shoulder-fired missiles because they won’t know if a plane taking off from John F. Kennedy International Airport is a craft plane with counter-measures or not.”

The Guardian system also was designed for quick and easy transplant to a different aircraft.

“You may not know which plane may be flying on a DOD mission, but you can easily within 20 minutes install the entire system on a plane the is going into Kuwait,” Israel said. “So this is a great way of testing the portability and the logistics of these systems.”

The civil reserve air fleet is also used to transport members of the U.S. government, Israel added.

The bill is in the process of being wordsmithed by legislative counsel, and Israel hopes to introduce it before Congress breaks for spring recess April 2.

The Guardian system is already in use in the United States on an experimental basis.

In August, Northrop Grumman won a $55.4 million contract to produce 12 Guardian systems, modify 11 MD-10 aircraft and operate the technology on board nine of the planes.

The first of the planes — a Federal Express aircraft — was launched Jan. 16 out of Los Angeles International Airport, according to Jack Pledger, director of infrared counter-measures business development at Northrop Grumman. Three more systems will be installed on aircraft in March and nine airplanes will be flying by the summer, he added.

This phase III testing focuses on gauging how the devices affect revenues and operations — including turnaround time, profitability, maintenance and costs — on commercial cargo flights.

So far, the results have come back favorable after the Federal Express plane’s initial 88 missions — or 600 operational hours — with a Guardian system, Pledger said.

The Los Angeles-based company will test the systems and planes through March 2008 and aim to have about 12,000 hours of operational time to evaluate when all is said and done. A report detailing the company’s findings will then be written and sent to the Department of Homeland Security.

Northrop Grumman estimates that the systems will cost less than $1 million per unit when they are ordered in batches of 200 to 300, Pledger said. DHS previously established a price ceiling of no more than $1 million per unit when ordered in batches of 1,000.

Matthew M. Johnson can be reached at mjohnson@cq.com