McDonnell Wins $480-Million Contract for ‘Star Wars’ System

McDonnell Douglas Astronautics in Huntington Beach has been awarded a $480.6-million Air Force contract to develop and test a satellite-launched, particle beam weapon system for the Strategic Defense Initiative, the so-called Star Wars program.

The contract, expected to result in the hiring of at least 200 additional workers at the company’s sprawling Orange County facility over the next few years, calls for McDonnell Douglas to build three satellites and the particle beam accelerator, launch them from NASA’s space shuttle and then conduct a five- to seven-day test of the entire apparatus.

The test is scheduled for the early 1990s.

The firm, a unit of McDonnell Douglas of St. Louis, had performed early development work on the particle beam system and will continue its operations under the new contract which it won in a competition against Lockheed’s space facility in Sunnyvale, near San Jose.

The test is expected to be the first space-based evaluation of a neutral particle beam, an energy charge that travels at near the speed of light and deposits its energy deep within a target, causing extensive internal damage.