(ReliableNews.org) – China is in the process of bolstering its military through major investments. One way it’s doing that is through weapons development. Recently, its scientists made a new discovery about hypersonic missiles.
In 2021, China shocked the US by carrying out a test of a hypersonic missile. They travel at Mach 5 or faster and fly at a low altitude in space before hitting their targets. The missile’s speed and the way it travels through low-orbit space make it hard to detect. They are also maneuverable and don’t follow fixed trajectories, which can allow them to sneak past missile defense systems.
According to a new study, Chinese researchers recently learned that lasers could be the answer to destroying the missiles. The lasers can strip the weapons of the special coating that gives hypersonic weapons an edge. When the missile encounters a high-powered laser, it peels the coating off and can make the weapon unstable, overheat, and then cause it to fall apart while it’s in the air.
Scientists previously thought the coating of hypersonic weapons was resistant to lasers because the missiles can withstand heat in the thousands of degrees. The Chinese researchers out of Beijing put the projectiles to the test in a wind tunnel where they were traveling at about Mach 6 and then hit them with lasers doubled in strength.
When the laser hit the missiles, it removed the coating, stripping the weapon. The power density of the laser has to be approximately 1kW/cm2, though. The scientists discovered that increasing it more than that was counterproductive because the missiles actually peeled less the higher the strength went beyond 1kW/cm2.
Some experts previously believed lasers weren’t sufficient to stop the missiles. The Chinese researchers stated that previous studies didn’t correctly replicate the atmospheric conditions because the airflow cooled the weapons. But during an actual flight, the atmosphere would heat them.
US officials have not commented on the study.
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