The US Defense Department will allocate $304 million to build and test neutron weapons, which will be used to intercept ballistic missiles, Popular Mechanics portal reported.

Testing of new weapons is already scheduled for 2023 and may be the US response to the development of new advanced missiles by Russia.

The development of neutron weapons has been kicked off in the US since 1989. Now for the money allocated by the Pentagon, it is planned to create an orbital grouping of satellites, which will be equipped with emitters of subatomic particles.

Neutron guns do not contradict the Treaty on Space concluded in 1967 between the United States, UK and the Soviet Union, since they are not weapons of mass destruction.

As reported earlier, US has already experienced a similar neutron installation BEAR (Beam Experiments Aboard a Rocket) in 1989. Now scientists have been able to solve the problem of reducing the size and mass of such a neutron gun, which allows it to be delivered into orbit. In 2018, David Mann, head of the US Army Space and Missile Defense Command, announced that the United States had the technology to create a long-range neutron beam, which will be a new stage in the development of high-tech weapons.