Copyright scmp
Particle beams – streams of atoms or subatomic particles accelerated to nearly the speed of light – have been the holy grail of space warfare. The idea is simple: fire a tightly focused beam of high-energy particles at an enemy satellite or missile, damaging it through sheer kinetic and thermal energy. But turning this vision into reality has remained out of reach. One critical reason is power. To work, a particle beam weapon needs not just massive amounts of energy, but also extreme precision in how that energy is delivered. In a particle accelerator on board a satellite, electromagnetic fields must “push” charged particles at precise moments as they race through different sections. These energy pulses must maintain almost perfectly in sync, with errors no more than millionths or billionths of a second – microseconds and nanoseconds, respectively. Otherwise, the beam will lose focus, efficiency will drop and the weapon will fail. This creates a fundamental engineering dilemma: high power and high precision usually do not go together. Systems that deliver megawatts of power tend to be slow to control and systems that are ultra-precise often cannot handle such huge energy bursts, meaning engineers have had to choose between raw power and fine control – never both. However, Chinese scientists say they have cracked this decades-old dilemma. In a peer-reviewed study published in the Chinese-language journal Advanced Small Satellite Technology last month, a team led by senior engineer Su Zhenhua with DFH Satellite Co, Ltd, China’s largest satellite manufacturer, revealed an unprecedented space-based power system prototype that achieves both high power and precision. Their device delivers 2.6 megawatts (MW) of pulsed power while maintaining pulse synchronisation accuracy of just 0.63 microseconds in ground tests. “Existing pulsed power supplies typically have an output power of less than 1 megawatt and synchronisation control accuracy worse than 1 millisecond,” Su and his colleagues wrote. The team said higher performance was urgently needed because “devices like electromagnetic jamming warfare simulators and particle beam systems demand extremely high instantaneous power – often requiring megawatt-level energy to be released with microsecond or even nanosecond precision”. “The test results of the prototype demonstrate that the new method solves the problems of insufficient power supply and degraded control accuracy for high-power spaceborne equipment, and has broad application prospects,” they added. The team did not rely on a single miracle material or component. Instead, they redesigned the entire power system architecture – a layered approach combining high-efficiency voltage boosting, advanced energy storage and ultra-precise discharge control. The satellite’s solar panels provide relatively low-voltage electricity. A special high-efficiency DC-DC converter steps up this voltage to very high levels, like pumping water uphill into a reservoir. The reservoir is a capacitor energy array – a bank of specialised capacitors that can unleash energy in a flash. When triggered, the system discharges the stored energy through a linear pulsed constant-current source, which ensures the output current remains extremely stable and consistent – critical for sensitive high-energy equipment. The current control precision reached 0.79 per cent, meaning the actual intensity of current stays almost identical to the target value. To synchronise 36 separate power modules all firing at once, the team used a central FPGA-based controller, a type of programmable chip excellent for real-time tasks, ensuring all units fire within 630 nanoseconds of each other. The result is a total output of 2.59MW in clean, square-wave pulses – ideal for driving particle accelerators, lasers and other advanced space-based systems. While particle beam weapons may capture the imagination, this technology has broad non-military applications in space systems. These include lidar and laser communication, next-generation ion thrusters that could revolutionise satellite manoeuvring and microwave remote sensing for high-resolution Earth observation and weather monitoring. In addition, the technology can incorporate space-based radar and electronic warfare for jamming or simulating signals in orbit, according to the researchers. China’s push into high-power space power systems comes amid growing strategic competition in orbit. With the US expanding its Starlink and planned Starshield constellations – networks of thousands of small, resilient, dual-use satellites – traditional weapons such as missiles are becoming less practical for space defence. This means shooting down cheap, fast-moving satellites with expensive missiles is inefficient and unsustainable. Directed energy weapons such as lasers and particle beams could disable or damage multiple targets at the speed of light, using only electricity generated by solar panels. The cost per shot is almost nothing. Despite the promising results, some military experts remain cautious. Satellites are already exposed to intense cosmic radiation, so they are built with radiation-hardened components and shielding to survive. Whether an artificial particle beam or laser could penetrate these defences remains an open question. While lab tests show promise, the harsh environment of space – extreme temperatures, vacuum, radiation and microgravity – presents additional challenges that the scientists need to overcome.
