Russia launches weapons Putin says are invincible: The truth about 'new physics'

 Russia launches weapons Putin says are invincible: The truth about 'new physics'

Plasma stealth is a process that uses ionized gas (plasma) to reduce the radar cross-section (RCS) of an aircraft.

Sharing with reporters on March 19, Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Major General Igor Konashenkov said that for the first time, the Russian Armed Forces used Kinzhal hypersonic missiles to destroy the arsenal of the Ukrainian army. in the village of Delyatyn, Ivano-Frankivsk region - Sputnik news.

The Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Armed Forces Vladimir Putin once praised the Kinzhal missile as one of the "invincible" weapons and considered it a weapon of "absolute superiority" with the statement: "I do not think such weapons could be developed by a certain country in the coming years, even though they may be made later."

Regarding the hypersonic missile line, in 2021 when discussing Russia's Zircon hypersonic missile, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Yury Borisov said: "We have moved forward in the field of hypersonic weapons based on the new physics." 

In fact, the "new physics" may not be so new, but from 1999 and related to plasma invisibility.

Plasma stealth is a process that uses ionized gas (plasma) to reduce the radar cross-section (RCS) of an aircraft. The interaction between electromagnetic radiation and ionizing gases has been studied extensively for a variety of purposes, including its ability to conceal aircraft from radar, which is theoretically plasma stealth. Although it is theoretically possible to reduce the RCS of an aircraft by encasing the airframe in plasma, in practice it can be very difficult to do so.

Various methods can create a layer or cloud of plasma around the airframe ranging from electrostatic discharges or RF pulses to more exotic possibilities like laser-generated plasmas.

Hypersonic vehicles or weapons fly so fast that the air in front of them forms a plasma cloud that absorbs or jams radar waves, rendering the object practically invisible to radar systems.

So what is plasma?

Plasma is often considered to be the fourth ground state of matter, along with solid, liquid, and gas. Plasma is matter in which one or more electrons are separated from an atom, forming an ionized gas.

Plasma is the most abundant "ordinary" form of matter in our universe. The word "regular" means excluding dark matter or dark energy. Plasma is what makes stars, including our Sun. Examples of plasmas used in our daily lives are neon signs and plasma TVs.

Plasma can be produced by heating a neutral gas, or by subjecting the gas to a strong electromagnetic field. The presence of free charge carriers inside the plasma makes it conductive and respond to external electromagnetic fields.

Plasma has been shown to interfere with radar waves, reducing the radar cross-section (RCS) of an aircraft. The technology to take advantage of this was first proposed in 1956 by a General Electric engineer named Arnold Eldredge.

During the 1960s, the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) funded a project to reduce the RCS of US reconnaissance aircraft, especially the Lockheed A-12. It is said to have used a cesium-phased fuel additive to greatly reduce the engine's radar signature and an electron beam to create an ionizing cloud in front of the air intakes to help conceal the entire face. its back from radar waves. The system has been tested but has never been put into action.

What is radar?

Radar, short for Radio Detection and Ranging, is a detection system consisting of a transmitter that generates electromagnetic waves in the spectrum of radio or microwave waves, a transmitting antenna, a receiving antenna, a receiver and a receiver. a processor.

Radio waves, which can be pulsed or continuous, reflect off an object, then return to the receiver, and the round trip time, intensity, and Doppler shift of the reflected signal provide information about range, size and speed.

The first radar units were developed in absolute secrecy by several countries just before and during World War II. An important development was the invention of the magnetron cavity in the UK, which allowed the creation of relatively small systems with good resolution.

Radar is used to detect aircraft, ships at sea, spacecraft, missiles, weather patterns, terrain, and even cars on the road. For example, you might see a policeman stopped by the side of the road pointing a speedometer at oncoming traffic.

The planes have a radar system called TCAS, which stands for Traffic Warning and Collision Avoidance System, to help them avoid mid-air collisions. However, there is one flaw in the object detection ability of all radars and that is plasma.

Use stealth plasma

When an electromagnetic wave encounters the plasma, the wave transfers energy to the ions and electrons in the plasma. Some of that wave's energy will be returned to the wave by the particles, and some of its energy will become heat. If a plasma absorbed all the energy of the incident radar wave, it would reduce the object's RCS to undetectable levels and render the object almost completely invisible to radar.

The difficulty arises because radar waves have a widely variable frequency. Many fighters have attack and reconnaissance radars operating in the 8.5-11 GHz and 13-18 GHz bands; short wavelengths of the 2.7-10.5 GHz band are widely used for surface search, detection of low-flying targets and ship navigation; while over-the-horizon radars can operate in the HF band (3-30 MHz) and space surveillance and early warning radars operate in the VHF and UHF bands.

Because of the different frequencies of radar waves used, the plasma must be able to vary in its density, temperature, and magnetic field.

Another difficulty is the amount of electricity required to create a plasma large enough to surround an entire aircraft. A more economical solution is to enclose only the most radar-reflective surfaces on the aircraft, such as turbofan propeller blades, engine air intakes, longitudinal stabilizers, and the own radar antenna. planes.

Beginning in 2010, Boeing filed a number of patents related to plasma invisibility. These include an electrically controlled airflow control system, a plasma generator used to generate plasma on the rear edge of the aircraft that can change its RCS, a plasma drive system used to used to camouflage open weapons bays on fighter aircraft, an array plasma activator for use on propellers, and a system that controls airflow over the wing surfaces by means of an electrical pulse discharge.

Similar studies have also been carried out by many other firms such as AAC (USA), Dassault and Thales (France).

Plasma vs Radar

In 1957, the Soviet Union launched the first artificial satellite. While trying to track Sputnik, it was noticed that its electromagnetic scattering behavior was different from what would be expected for a conductive sphere. This is because the satellite moves inside a plasma shell: the ionosphere.

Sputnik's simple shape is an ideal illustration of the effect of plasma on the RCS of an aircraft. Naturally, an airplane would have a much more complex shape and be made of a wider variety of materials, but the basic effect remains the same. In the case of Sputnik passing through the ionosphere at high velocity and surrounded by a natural plasma shell, there are two distinct radar reflections: the first from the conductive surface of the satellite and the second. from the dielectric plasma shell.

In January 1999, the Russian news agency ITAR-TASS published an interview with Anatoliy Koroteyev, who was the Director of the Russian Institute of Scientific Research on Thermal Processes, now known as the Keldysh Research Center. In the interview, Koroteyev described a plasma stealth device that has been developed by his organization.

In June 2002, the then-Electronic Defense Journal reported that "plasma cloud generation technology for stealth applications" developed in Russia reduced the aircraft's RCS by a factor of 100, and it tested on the Sukhoi Su-27IB.

The National Aeronautical Reporting Center for Anomalous Phenomena (NARCAP), reported an incident that occurred on the evening of March 19, 2020, when two FedEx pilots were flying a Boeing 767 cargo plane at the airport. altitude 11000m north of Monterrey, Mexico. Suddenly, a bright object fell from the sky, then followed them for more than 30 minutes, hovering at a distance of 300 to 600m at the tip of the plane's wing.

The pilot recorded the encounter, which showed a bright object enveloped in a shimmering plasma cloud. What the captain did next was the most interesting thing, he tilted the camera down to show his radar screen but there was no sign of the object on the radar.

NARCAP director Ted Roe told the Daily Mail the encounter "...confirmed what I've been saying all along, which is that UAP (Unknown Aerial Phenomenon) was constantly being detected. He was on camera. on my radar screen and didn't detect it."

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The most recent event showing the application of stealth plasma is Russia's firing of the Kinzhal hypersonic missile. The missile has been tested since 2017 and was launched from a MIG31 aircraft. In its final phase it reached Mach10, which is 10 times the speed of sound. At this speed, plasma is formed around the missile to help it evade radar tracking.

Tel according to Soha