China designs super powerful microwave weapon to fry spacecrafts

Chinese scientists affiliated with the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) have designed a highly powerful microwave weapon based on a quantum phenomenon called superradiance, originally explored by the Soviet Union during the Cold War. This weapon is claimed to generate repeated 10-gigawatt power beams capable of disabling or destroying drones, satellites, and spacecraft in low Earth orbit. Simulations indicate the weapon can produce initial pulses of 16.6 GW, followed by pulses above 10 GW lasting about 0.77 nanoseconds each, firing at an extremely high repetition rate of up to 126 million pulses per second. Such rapid firing and high power make it difficult for targets to evade, and the weapon can operate covertly without revealing its location. The design team aims to build a functional prototype and hopes to extend the weapon’s range to target satellites in higher orbits. The weapon’s development leverages the quantum mechanical effect of superradiance, where a group of atoms collectively emit light in a highly efficient manner