Normally we see that the weapons are made using gun powder and are costing more that a million dollars each.
Now the navy has developed a new kind of a missile that does not use gun powder for the blast and can reach incredible speeds. The secret behind these weapons which the navy is calling as the Railgun is the use of electricity instead of gunpowder.
The Railgun works by sending electric current along parallel rails creating an electromagnetic force so powerful that it can fire the projectile at whooping speeds.
These guns are also much safer than the other missiles in which a malfunction can make the missile explode in the ship only. The Railgun on the other hand is powered by electricity and can only be launched and cannot be misfired.
The prototype of the system that was tested was only an 8-megajoule device but the future weapons will be able to deliver more than 64-megajoules.
The Railgun fires the projectile to a distance of more than 200 nautical miles and that too with a speed of 380 mph.
Navy will also introduce a 32-megajoule version in June with the final 64-megajoule version in 2020.
Moreover other counterparts of the Railgun that is Tomahawk cruise missile costs around a million dollars whereas the Railgun projectile will have no gun powder so it will have a cost of just $1,000. The Railgun projectiles will also be equipped with a GPS system that will help in navigating it when it is in flight.
The only problem with the researchers is that the 64-megajoule device when launched will be under the force of more than a thousand G and the electronics will be damaged in the process. They will have to develop some other alternatives for the same.
The projectile when fired will literally go into space at the apex of its trajectory which will be around 95 miles above the surface of earth.
Still the Navy has around thirteen more years to develop more technology that can survive the extreme G-forces that the projectile will undergo during its flight as they have planned to introduce the fully developed version in 2020.
Via: fredericksburg
