High-Powered Microwave Weapons Note Quite Ready
New contracts have been issued, but maturity of a technology that can disable computer systems is debated.

It is now four years since the U.S. flew a cruise missile over an office building and caused all the computer screens inside to go blank. That was a successful test of a high-power microwave (HPM) weapon by the U.S. Air Force on the Utah Test Range. The same team has just received new contracts worth $10 million to move forward with the technology, but, like other directed-energy weapons, translating promise into operational reality is taking a long time.

“I think things will now move forward faster than in the last couple of years,” Steve Downie, site director for Raytheon Advanced Missile Systems in Albuquerque, New Mexico, told AIN. His facility produces the radiating payloads for the Counter-electronics High-powered microwave Advanced Missile Project (CHAMP) missile.