The Tractor Beam

In the first movie, Dr. Wilhelm Billington and his fellow agents tried to use this laser to shift the Moon's orbit which in turn could change the Earth's weather.

Dr. Billington and his agents stole this laser from a U.S. Military Base in the Southwestern United States. They then did various tests on both the laser concept via a miniaturized version (one of which was witnessed by C.J.) and on the device itself after installing the latter into 98th Street School when it was out during the summer. However, glitches occurred that caused the laser dish to malfunction and prematurely deactivate on its first try.

Presumably, they managed to cancel out most, if not all of the bugs by the time Lunar Perigee took place, although Vance barely stopped it using C.J.'s old baseball, due to the lever being jammed once it was activated (which Billington managed to activate after Prickly had punched him in the face).