C/Net has a story on the 95 GHz Active Denial weapon due to be deployed in Iraq next year. Scientists are questioning the safety of the Star Wars-style riot control ray gun.

Classified as “less lethal” by the Pentagon, it fires a 95GHz microwave beam at rioters to cause heating and intolerable pain in less than five seconds. The discomfort is designed to prompt people caught in the microwave beam to move away from it, thereby allowing riot-control personnel to break up and manage a crowd. But New Scientist magazine reported Wednesday that during tests carried out at Kirtland Air Force Base in New Mexico, participants playing the part of rioters were told to remove glasses and contact lenses to protect their eyes.

In another test they were also told to remove metal objects such as coins from their clothing to prevent local hot spots from developing on their skin.

“What happens if someone in a crowd is unable for whatever reason to move away from the beam?” asked Neil Davison, coordinator of the nonlethal weapons research project at Britain’s Bradford University. The magazine said a vehicle-mounted version of the weapon named Sheriff was scheduled for service in Iraq in 2006 and that U.S. Marines and police were both working on portable versions.

Defense Tech explains that for years, the Air Force and the Pentagon’s Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Directorate have been working on the Active Denial System, or ADS. The 95 GHz millimeter waves penetrate a 64th of inch beneath the skin, where nerve receptors are concentrated. And when the waves hit, they produce an “intense heating sensation [which] stops only if the individual moves out of the beam s path or the beam is turned off,” a Sandia press release explains. The Air Force is developing an airborne version of the pain ray.

“The sensation caused by the system has been described by test subjects as feeling like touching a hot frying pan.”

Directed Energy Weapons include laser, high power radio frequency (HPRF), and particle beam technologies and high powered audio (transmitted over a hypersonic carrier). High-Power Microwave (HPM) weapons and lasers are the primary directed-energy weapons, but on the horizon is a third called a plasma weapon. A plasma packet has mass, moves through space and has been compared with a bolt of lightning. It is slower than a laser beam or HPM spike, but it can cause much more physical damage. Many are being developed at Kirkland AFB, New Mexico.

• Ionatron, a Tucson, Arizona laser weapon firm, is working on a real-life ray gun, according to Defense Tech. It supposedly uses femtosecond lasers light pulses that last less than a ten-trillionth of a second to carve conductive channels of ionized oxygen in the air. Through these channels, Ionatron’s blaster supposedly sends man-made lighting bolts, frying anyone unfortunate enough to step into their path, up to 800 meters away. 
• A high-power microwave system called the Scorpion, “blew up… more than 75% of the improvised explosive devices it encountered in operationally realistic scenarios,” AFRL spokesman Rich Garcia writes. Last fall, engineers from the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) and Alliant Techsystems put together the prototype microwave generator, for an exercise at the Yuma Proving Grounds.In 2003, the Army sent ZEUS, a Humvee armed with a 10kw solid-state laser, to Afghanistan, to blast mines and other explosives left over from years of war. In the six months ZEUS spent there, the laser-hummer zapped over 200 pieces of unexploded ordnance, according to the Army, “at one point setting a record for ordnance disposal by negating 51 pieces in less than 100 minutes.”

   

• Audio Beamforming, invented by Woody Norris was used At the Republican Convention, using the Long Range Acoustic Device, capable of blasting at an earsplitting 150 decibels for dispursing crowds. It can direct sound for four blocks to the point of pain. LRAD, which is 33 inches in diameter and looks like a giant spotlight, has been used by the U.S. military in Iraq and at sea as a non-lethal force. 
  

   

  Norris is commercializing the ultrasonic beamformer used for crowd control and de-weaponizing it. The $699.00 HSS H450 directed sound system features enhanced performance at half the price of previous models. The HyperSonic Sound device uses an ultrasonic piezoelectric transducer (above) to emit sound at frequencies above the human ear’s 20,000-cycle threshold. Unlike low-frequency waves, the high-frequency signals don’t spread out as they travel through air. These waves combine with normal audio from a CD or MP-3 player, interfering to create an audible signal, focused into a beam. Two Ultrasonic emitters around 39kHz can be used; one driven at 39kHz and the other at 39kHz + xkHz, where x is an audible frequency (pdf).

Another Intelsat Dark: Cause Unknown Intelsat reported their Intelsat 804 (see: footprint, Lyngsat, specs & Lockheed Martin), failed in orbit, the second such failure for the satellite operator in less than two months. The satellite was uninsured.     Intelsat said their IS-804 suffered “a sudden and unexpected electrical power system anomaly” Friday evening, rendering the satellite totally and permanently unusable. Many customers of the satellite had been moved to other satellites by Sunday evening. “Intelsat currently believes that there is no connection between this event and [the IA-7 satellite failure] less then two months earlier, since the two satellites were manufactured by different companies and their designs are different,” the statement said. The manufacturer of the Intelsat 804 was Lockheed Martin, which used their AS-7000 satellite plaform. Meanwhile, Intelsat’s IA-7 satellite that failed in November, was built by a different company (Space Systems/Loral) and had a completely different, 1300 space platform.     On November 28, 2004, Intelsat-7 went dark. It also experienced a sudden and unexpected electrical distribution anomaly“. Intelsat-7 (see: footprint, Lyngsat, specs & Space Systems/Loral), was launched in September 1999 and covered the continental U.S., Alaska, Hawaii, Canada, Central America, and parts of South America from 129 West.     One might wonder about the fate of Intelsat 701, at 180 degrees East, which is on the left side of the satellite chart (above). Intelsat 804 is on the right. Atlantic-based Intelsat 707 is critical for middle east/US traffic. The cause of the Intelsat IA-7 and Intelsat 804 loss is still unknown but the reliability and credibility of satellite communications may have suffered a body blow this week. Of course there’s no reason to expect foul play of any sort. But…beam weapons that could “take out” a satellite are quickly becoming a reality. Satellite providers may have entered a new era. U.S. military and commercial satellites are vulnerable to attack, said Lt. Gen. Edward G. Anderson III, deputy commander of the U.S. Space Command, in 2001. He told the House Armed Services Committee that the United States runs “the very real risk of a ‘space Pearl Harbor’ or another Sputnik that catches us off guard and unprepared.” Directed Energy Weapons include laser, high power radio frequency (HPRF), and particle beam technologies. High-Power Microwave (HPM) weapons and lasers are the primary directed-energy weapons, but on the horizon is a third called a plasma weapon. A plasma packet has mass, moves through space and has been compared with a bolt of lightning. It is slower than a laser beam or HPM spike, but it can cause much more physical damage. Dr. Good, ran the Air Force’s Directed Energy Directorate. A flux compression generator is used to generate the gigawatts of power needed for a microwave weapon. Scientists at Sara Inc., have developed a portable microwave emitter that can stop a car from several hundred feet. They hope to sell it to police agencies. The Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program funds ideas like that.     Intelsat dropped plans for a public stock offering in favor of a $3 billion acquisition by four buyout firms, but the loss of the satellite could trigger a clause in the acquisition agreement that would let Zeus Holdings cancel the deal. The stuff of spy novels.

DailyWireless has more on Beam Weapons, Audio Beamforming, Pacific Satellites Fail, and Joint Tactical Radio.

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Posted by Sam Churchill on Thursday, July 21st, 2005 at 3:30 am.