A team of Chinese military researchers say they have built and tested an anti-satellite robotic device that can place a small pack of explosives into a probe\u2019s exhaust nozzle.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Rather than blowing the satellite into pieces, the melt-cast explosive can produce a \u201ctime-controlled, steady explosion\u201d, Professor Sun Yunzhong and colleagues from the Hunan Defence Industry Polytechnic in Xiangtan wrote in a paper published in the domestic journal\u00a0Electronic Technology & Software Engineering<\/em>\u00a0last month.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The device could stay inside the satellite for an extended period by using a locking mechanism driven by an electric motor. If needed, the process can be reversed to separate it from the target.<\/p>\n The project was funded by a government scheme to develop a new type of warhead for rocket missiles, according to the paper.<\/p>\n The device has been built and tested in a ground facility and the researchers said it\u00a0\u201cwould have practical value in certain engineering applications\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n China conducted its first anti-satellite test in 2007, destroying a defunct weather satellite with a missile and drawing international criticism over the cloud space debris it created.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The United States and the former Soviet Union had conducted a large number of similar experiments during the Cold War, but these tests stopped after the 1980s because the debris puts valuable space assets and astronauts at risk.<\/p>\n China\u2019s anti-satellite programme in recent years has focused on technology that would produce little or no debris, such as capturing a satellite with a net or robotic arms.<\/p>\n The Chinese military has also developed various types of ground-based weapons that could blind or damage a passing satellite with a laser beam.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n But these methods are relatively easy to detect, so Sun\u2019s team looked for other ways to target satellites by placing explosives inside them.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The explosives are packed into a bullet shaped device that weights only 3.5kg and mirrors the shape of the de Laval nozzles that power most satellites.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n These are pipes with a narrow throat in the middle that converts gas into kinetic energy and, although they are based on a 19th century design by the Swedish engineer Gustaf de Laval, are still used on the most advanced satellites today.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.fie.undef.edu.ar\/ceptm\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/5e19a4aa-3241-11ec-8bc1-f82f86ab0ffa_1320x770_034501.jpg\")