Israel’s Defense Ministry announced today that it successfully tested Israel’s Arrow 3 anti-missile system, the latest iteration of the jointly-developed U.S.-Israeli platform designed to target and shoot down long-range missiles of the kind deployed by Syria and Iran.
The Arrow system, co-produced by The Boeing Corporation and Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI), is the first the fully deployed national anti-ballistic missile system in the world. Starting in 2002, Boeing and its defense subcontractors teamed up with IAI to manufacture much of the system and its components across several states, creating American jobs and developing cutting edge defense technology for use by the U.S. military.
Boeing says it has already identified potential markets in India, Singapore and South Korea. “As we prove out that technology, and show that it’s not only affordable but effective, we think there will be additional global market opportunities for that capability,” Dennis Muilenburg, chief executive of Boeing’s defense, space and security arm, told Reuters recently.
The missile defense system does its work in space:
Set to become operational in around 2016, the Arrow 3 missile defense system operates in space, traveling at twice the speed of a tank shell to leave the atmosphere. It is designed to seek and destroy Iranian Shihab 3 missiles, as well as other long-range projectiles. A senior defense source said the interceptor took off at around 8 a.m. on Monday morning over the Mediterranean Sea. “It obtained hypersonic speed, and reached an altitude of 100 kilometers, entering space. It followed various objects, such as stars, and gained further altitude. Its engine stopped after six minutes,” the source said.
The Arrow 3 system joins Israel’s Iron Dome and David’s Sling anti-missile systems, which are designed respectively to intercept short-range rockets and medium-range threats. Iron Dome performed above expectations during Israel’s recent November conflict with Hamas, and David’s Sling batteries are set to come online in 2014.
Iran continues to call for Israel’s “full annihilation”, and its Lebanese and Palestinian proxies Hezbollah and Hamas have tens of thousands of rockets and missiles aimed at Israeli civilian centers. Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah recently boasted that the group can and will bombard Israeli civilian installations in order to paralyze the country.