US Defense officials have announced that they intend to test the first space weapon in 2023. The reason is to give greater impetus to the study of various types of space weapons. They then asked for an additional $ 304 million in the 2020 budget to develop new beam weapons, more powerful lasers, and other new missile defense technologies. Such weapons are needed, senior officials say, to counter the new ICBMs in possession of China, Russia, North Korea and Iran. The challenge is to understand which of these new weapons can really serve to counter the threat.
The Pentagon has launched two studies
The first with a $ 15 million grant on laser-armed satellites to determine if they can be able to intercept and destroy enemy missiles from launch pads. The lasers, according to insiders, should be of the megawatt class.
The second refers to beams of neutral particles based in space, a different form of direct energy that destroys missiles with streams of subatomic particles traveling close to the speed of light - as opposed to lasers, whose photons travel at the speed of of the light.
On Wednesday, defense officials told Pentagon reporters they were sure that the studies would lead to results that could actually be used in space.
This is not the first time the Department has examined these weapons. In the 1989, the United States launched a beam of neutral particles in space, as part of an experiment called BEAR (Beam Accelerator Aboard a Rocket).
The experiment had a modest success: "However the BEAR has shown that the accelerator technology can be adapted to a space environment".
But there is a big difference between a successful experiment and an economically deployable weapon. However, there are several companies that are grappling with the construction of credible prototypes.
Defense officials themselves said there have been technological advances that have reduced the size and cost of particle weapons.
The generation of energy, the formation of the ray, the accelerometer necessary to get there and what is needed to neutralize that ray are now a mature capacity also in the light of the technologies for miniaturizing systems ".
The officials, however, are keen to point out that the ongoing exploratory studies do not necessarily mean that the Department will deploy a weapon in space.
The drive to develop space weapons also reflects the growing concern for missile technology advances by "competing" nations such as China, Russia, Iran and North Korea.
The effort for the neutral particle Beam must be used to operate in the spatial defense layer known as "Intercected Energy Intercept".
The Beam will offer, in the future, new options for national missile defense against the threat of ICBMs. The MDA - Missile Defense Agency wrote in a report. These new technologies will try to hit enemy missiles during their push phase, as they leave the launch pad. "This is the land of the coming battles" The challenge is to know immediately where the missile comes from at least a couple of minutes before it leaves the atmosphere. So you have to have a weapon that is already on the space station with continuous autonomy and upgrade it with the megawatt class, with a weight necessarily reduced.
Of course there is a contrary current of thought, the arms control officers. Kingston Reif, who heads the Disarmament and Threat Reduction Policy at the Arms Control Association said: "The deployment of interceptors in space would be a disaster for strategic stability. To ensure the credibility of their nuclear deterrents, Russia and China would probably respond by building new and additional types of long-range ballistic missiles and missiles flying on non-ballistic trajectories. Russia and China could also take measures to improve their ability to destroy such US interceptors, thus greatly increasing the threat to the United States in space. The United States is a signatory to the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, which prohibits placing nuclear weapons in space".
Another defense official clarified that the treaty does not constitute an obstacle to the deployment of lasers or beams of neutral particles in orbit. "The Treaty on the cosmic space of the 1967 states that weapons of mass destruction cannot be placed in outer space and therefore further limits specifically military activities on celestial bodies, such as the moon or other. But the treaty does not expressly prohibit activities that are not weapons of mass destruction in space ".
If the Defense Department deploys weapons into space, the US would be the first country to officially do so, according to insiders. However, defense officials say a February report from the Defense Intelligence Agency said China and Russia are already standing developing space weapons that could be put into orbit next year.