According to a new report by Taiwan News, researchers in China have developed a microwave machine "Relativistic Klystron Amplifier (RKA)" that has the capability to jam or destroy satellites in space.
The device can generate a wave burst measuring 5-megawatts in the Ka-band, a portion of the electromagnetic spectrum increasingly used for both civil and military purposes, the report said citing Asia Times.
Although not powerful enough to shoot targets out of the sky from the ground, the RKA can be mounted onto satellites, which could then be used to attack enemy assets in space by burning out their sensitive electronics.
Directed Energy Weapons (DEW) are systems that use concentrated electromagnetic energy rather than kinetic energy to damage or destroy enemy equipment and/or personnel in a physical conflict.
Although China denies the RKA is a Directed Energy Weapon (DEW), if the system were built at scale, it could send beams strong enough to rip through metallic materials moving at speed, reported Taiwan News.
A Beijing-based space scientist told the media anonymously that this tech could function as a high-powered weapon, saying its power was "overwhelming just to think about."
Space is increasingly becoming a hotly contested geo-political arena, with recent revelations indicating that China tested a nuclear-capable hypersonic glide vehicle that flew through low-orbit space in August last year.
Moreover, the recent conflict in Ukraine could also give birth to a greater risk of conflict in space and endanger satellites.
The collaboration Russia and Western countries enjoyed in space for decades may soon come to an end with the Russian space director recently threatening Moscow might decline to correct the course of the International Space Station, which would bring it crashing down to earth, reported Taiwan News. Furthermore, Russia last year destroyed one of its own legacy satellites which created mass debris in space.
