Countries developing Neutron guns as particle beam directed energy weapons to destroy enemy missiles

A neutron beam can destroy electronics and that would be useful in warfare. The U.S. Defense Strategic Defense Initiative put into development the technology of a neutral particle beam to be used as a weapon in outer space. Neutral beam accelerator technology was developed at Los Alamos National Laboratory. According to report, the Pentagon wants a space-based directed energy weapon that would destroy enemy missiles shortly after takeoff. The weapon, called a neutral particle beam, would be tested from orbit in 2023.The Missile Defense Agency (MDA) wants a total of $380 million through the 2023 fiscal year to develop the directed energy weapon.

 

In July, 1989, the program put a neutral-particle beam into orbit as part of a project called the Beam Experiment Aboard a Rocket, which analysts described as “a major success for the NPB program.” The tests showed that the weapon could be ruggedized for space launch and operation and that the beam was sufficiently narrow to hit a target.

 

“The neutral particle beam is a game-changing space-based directed-energy capability for strategic and regional missile defense. MDA will design, develop and conduct a feasibility demonstration of a first stage accelerator subsystem,” according to the Fiscal Year 2020 Research Development Test and Evaluation department-wide project justification for the Missile Defense Agency.

 

The Pentagon planned neutral particle beam spending of $34 million in the next fiscal year and up to $380 million during the next four years. The funding would be used to conduct detailed systems engineering of the technology. The idea is to use neutral particles to bombard incoming targets with enough energy to disrupt, incapacitate or kill the threat, according to the FY 2020 project justification

 

 

 

Neutral particle beam weapons work by accelerating particles without an electric charge—particularly neutrons—to speeds close to the speed of light and directing them against a target. Like lasers, neutral-particle beams focus beams of energy that travel in straight lines, unaffected by electromagnetic fields.  The accelerated neutrons knock protons out of the nuclei of particles in their target, generating heat that would damage the target.

 

At even higher power levels, the neutron beam generator could also disable electronics. High-energy neutrons, it turns out, do nasty things to materials like the silicon used in computer chips or the gallium used in radars. It’s rather like a neutron bomb, except you can aim it at one target instead of blasting everything indiscriminately.

 

The Defense Department tested a particle beam weapon in 1989: the Beam Experiments Aboard Rocket (BEAR) project. But little has been done since then. The BEAR had a large accelerator and power supply, making it too heavy to launch into orbit. As part of the Beam Experiments Aboard Rocket (BEAR) project, a prototype hydrogen beam weapon was launched from White Sands Missile Range in July 1989 and successfully deployed into Low Earth Orbit. It was operated successfully in space and after reentry was recovered intact.

 

Russia already tests weapons based on new physical principles. For example, the Russian neutron gun, developed by the All-Russian Research Institute of Automation named after N.L. Dukhov, which was mounted on Curiosity rover under the agreement between NASA and Roscosmos, continues to improve. The proton generator is a lot more powerful than a laser: only one single impulse will be enough to destroy a nuclear reactor or a nuclear warhead.