Chinese researchers have developed a microwave machine named Relativistic Klystron Amplifier (RKA) which can jam and destroy satellites in space, news agency ANI reported citing an Asia Times and Taiwan News report.
The report pointed out that the RKA can generate a wave burst measuring 5-megawatts in the Ka-band. The Ka-band is a portion of the electromagnetic spectrum which is used for civilian as well as military purposes.
The fear that future battles can happen in space is increased by the development of the RKA. The RKA may not be able to shoot targets out of the sky from the ground but it can be mounted onto satellites and used to attack enemy positions in space by frying their electrical components.
China denies that the RKA is a directed energy weapons (DEW) system. A DEW system used concentrated electromagnetic energy rather than kinetic energy to destroy enemy equipment and personnel, news agency ANI explained. The Taiwan News report expressed concern that if RKA turns out to be a DEW it can rip apart metallic materials moving at speed.
A Chinese scientist anonymously told the East Asian news agencies that the sheer power of such a weapon is unthinkable.
China is on a mission to improve its military. The Chinese Communist Party over the years have taken steps to modernise the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) and its air force and naval wings.
Thomas Karako, a senior fellow at the Washington-based think tank Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), told the Taiwan Times that these developments should force the United States to deploy space-based sensors to counter the Chinese military’s new missiles.
Though the ongoing war in Ukraine has not led to suspension of collaboration between the Russian space agency with NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA), Russia warned that it might stop collaborating with the ESA and NASA warning that the International Space Station (ISS) might collapse.
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