MARAUDER is, or was, a United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 Government research project. It is an acronym

Acronym and initialism

Acronyms and initialisms are abbreviations formed from the initial components in a phrase or a word. These components may be individual letters or parts of words . There is no universal agreement on the precise definition of the various terms , nor on written usage...

 of Magnetically Accelerated Ring to Achieve Ultra-high Directed Energy and Radiation. It was first reported on August 1, 1993.

The objective appears to be the firing of 1 meter diameter toroid

Toroid

Toroid may refer to*Toroid , a doughnut-like solid whose surface is a torus.*Toroidal inductors and transformers which have wire windings on circular ring shaped magnetic cores.*Vortex ring, a toroidal flow in fluid mechanics....

s of magnetically contained plasma

Plasma (physics)

In physics and chemistry, plasma is a state of matter similar to gas in which a certain portion of the particles are ionized. Heating a gas may ionize its molecules or atoms , thus turning it into a plasma, which contains charged particles: positive ions and negative electrons or ions...

. The toroids behave in a similar manner to spheromak

Spheromak

A spheromak is an arrangement of plasma formed into a toroidal shape similar to a smoke ring. The spheromak contains large internal electrical currents and their associated magnetic fields arranged so the magnetohydrodynamic forces within the spheromak are nearly balanced, resulting in long-lived ...

plasma reactors. the project appeared to be in the early experimental stages.

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