Just as Utah’s West Desert and Wendover played a crucial role in the development of the nuclear age, it is now playing the same role for the weapon that could end it.
The Boeing and Raytheon corporations in conjunction with the United States military successfully concluded two months of tests on the $40-million Counter-electronics High-powered Microwave Advanced Missile Project (CHAMP) during a flight over the Utah Test and Training Range, monitored from Hill Air Force Base.
Engineers, researchers and test personnel from Boeing, Raytheon and the Air Force Research Laboratory observed the test flight from a conference room at nearby Hill Air Force Base. A television camera mounted in a room in the unoccupied target building showed rows of desktop computers, their screens on and programs running.
When CHAMP passed overhead and activated its Raytheon-built microwave emitter, the computers went dark — and, a moment later, so did the camera monitoring the test. “Cheers erupted in the conference room,” Boeing spokesman Randy Jackson wrote in a press release.
“This technology marks a new era in modern-day warfare,” Keith Coleman, the CHAMP program manager at Boeing Phantom Works, told Jackson. “In the near future, this technology may be used to render an enemy’s electronic and data systems useless even before the first troops or aircraft arrive.”
Utah’s West Desert and the Wendover Airfield were the proving grounds for the development of the delivery system of the first atomic bomb. For almost a year during World War II pilots trained on specially modified bombers flew from the Wendover airfield on hundreds of practice sorties over the West Desert before the historic and devastating mission over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki that ended World War II and ushered in the atomic age.
CHAMP’s successful test mark the culmination of a four-year process of formulating requirements, soliciting bids, selecting contractors and managing technology development and testing. The Air Force’s original solicitation called for “a multi-shot and multi-target aerial platform that targets electronic systems.”
The microwave weapon’s development began shortly after Israel’s air strike on suspected Syrian nuclear facilities in late 2007. In that raid, Israel apparently used non-lethal electronic attacks to shut down Syrian air defenses — a move that could be a model for future surgical strikes. At an off-the-record symposium in Pennsylvania in August, experts from the military, industry and academia plotted ways that microwave and other energy weapons could disable enemy forces, ending conflicts before a lethal shot has been fired.
One of the most startling developments in the research and test is that the missile system does not use any explosives, thereby limiting damage to its intended goal of directing microwave energy that can cause instant blackouts.
Keith Coleman, who serves as Boeing’s CHAMP program manager in their Phantom Works division, stated that video camera showed “images of numerous desktop computers running, and then suddenly all of them go out quickly followed by the camera going to black,” VR-Zone reported.
“We hit every target we wanted to… Today we made science fiction, science fact,” said Coleman.
This summer The London Times reported that an EMP bomb could cripple Iran by shutting down its electronics and sending the Islamic Republic “back to the Stone Age.”
EMP causes non-lethal gamma energy to react with the magnetic field and produces a powerful electromagnetic shock wave that can destroy electronic devices, especially those used in Iran’s nuclear plants.
The shock wave would knock out Iran’s power grid and communications systems for transport and financial services, leading to economic collapse.
The missile launched from the wing pylon of a B-52 heavy bomber and streaked over the desert of western Utah. At pre-set coordinates, a microwave emitter installed in the winged, jet-propelled cruise missile blasted a target building. But there was no big bang, no billowing clouds of dust and debris. Instead, the building was struck with disruptive, high-frequency microwaves.
While the program is led by Boeing the crucial technology comes from a small company called Ktech, which Raytheon bought in June last year. At the Paris Air Show, AOL Defense interviewed Raytheon executive Mike Booen about the company and its capabilities. Basically, Ktech’s microwave generators generate an EMP-like field which shuts down electronics.
Wendover Airport Manager Richard Brown reported that the exercise ended this week and Air Force personnel may have monitored the tests from the historic airfield and that the air base could play a part in future tests.
“That is really something,,” Brown said. “The same place where the atomic bomb was worked is being used to develop the means to stop it.”
