The Times of Israel
The Israeli Air Force received its first Arrow 3 missile defense system on Wednesday, a little over a year after its first real-world test, the Defense Ministry said.
After years of development and testing, the system is now considered operational, though it will continue to undergo checks and improvements, the ministry said.
“We’re entering a new age — the age of the Arrow 3,” Moshe Patel, the head of Israel’s missile defense program, said at the unveiling ceremony for the system.
“Today, we delivered to the air force the first Arrow 3 interceptor, with interception capabilities that are much greater and can be done from much farther away than anything that we have now,” Patel said.
The Arrow 3, which was developed in a joint Israeli-American program, is designed to shoot down intercontinental ballistic missiles outside the atmosphere, taking out the weapons and their nuclear, biological, chemical or conventional warheads closer to their launch sites.
The system is considered to be one of the most advanced in the world. Its design is the brainchild of the Defense Ministry’s Israel Missile Defense Organization and the US Missile Defense Agency, but the system was actually produced by the missile division of the Israel Aerospace Industry.
The Arrow 3 has been in development for nearly a decade, starting in 2008.
“The missile here, behind me, once sat on my drafting table. To see it here, delivered to the air force, is very emotional for me,” said Boaz Levi, vice president of IAI’s Systems, Missiles & Space Group…
