Directed energy
Pentagon Shelves Neutral Particle Beam Research


Defense officials are taking a step back from one of its most ambitious research goals: launching a massive neutral-particle-beam generator, essentially a ray gun, into space to fry the electronics of enemy missiles. The funds will go instead toward more fundamental research aimed at making lasers more powerful, according to Michael Griffin, defense undersecretary for research and engineering.

It marks a return to Earth for one of the biggest ideas that the Department has broached in recent years. Griffin first publicly floated the idea of a neutral particle beam in space in March 2018, while highlighting potential directed-energy weapons beyond high-powered lasers.

“High-powered microwave approaches can affect an electronics kill. The same with the neutral particle beam systems we explored briefly in the 1990s,” he said.

In March, Defense and military officials announced their intention to test a neutral particle beam in space in 2023, and requested $34 million to develop it in the 2020 budget.