Re <<balloons>>
... precedents are important, and as international rules do not de-limit sovereign airspace as far as height goes, essentially to as high as one is able to enforce domination
the Team USA shooting down of Team China balloon was unfortunate
scmp.com
Scientists shrink China’s Starlink-killing microwave weapon with new power source
Small pulse power device generates 10-gigawatt electron beam that can be used to drive a high-power microwave weapon, scientists say
The condensed power source enables military to put microwave cannon on a truck or rooftop for surprise attacks on enemy targets passing across the sky
It would be technically and financially impossible to bring down the Starlink network – which has thousands of satellites in near-Earth orbit already – using traditional anti-satellite missiles, they said.
A microwave cannon can jam the satellites’ communication or permanently damage their electric circuits at a low cost.
But the equipment used by the military mostly generates microwaves in kilowatt or megawatt power levels at present. To hurt a satellite, which is likely protected by shielding measures, the power of the microwave beam needs to reach a gigawatt or higher, according to a recent estimate by People’s Liberation Army scientists.
Shu’s team said generating high-power electricity in a small device could end in a puff of smoke.
In their early experiments, electric currents with extremely high voltage caused short circuits that burned hardened insulators.
The weapon designer also required the electric pulses to be nearly identical and remain at the maximum power output after many shots.
These stringent criteria added extra challenges for some critical components, such as switches and insulating materials.
The device developed by Shu’s team is an electron accelerator with an unusual internal design similar to DNA. It accelerated electrons in two spiral tubes resembling the double-helix structure of genetic material.
This unique design allowed the generation of ultra high-power electron beams in a limited space, according to their paper.
The spiral tubes were submerged in glycerine, a low-cost liquid chemical that provided excellent insulation and required no maintenance in the battlefield, they said, adding that short circuits disappeared after they found a way to get rid of tiny bubbles in the glycerine.
China has trailed the United States and Russia in the military application of high-power microwave technology, according to some PLA researchers.
The US Army destroyed a swarm of 33 drones with a microwave weapon during a field experiment in 2018.
Russia’s Krasukha electronic warfare system is thought to have a range of 300km. Photo: Wikipedia
In the same year, Russia’s Krasukha-4 microwave cannon grounded an American AH-64 Apache attack helicopter in Syria by damaging its electrical circuits.
Some military experts believe the Krasukha-4 system requires several hundred kilowatts of power, with an effective range reaching 300km (186 miles). |
