The David's Sling (Magic Wand) system for intercepting missiles and heavy rockets will be declared operational in the coming months, the Ministry of Defense announced today, following a series of successful trials in which the system completely intercepted a target missile. Rafael Advanced Defense Systems Ltd. is developing the system in cooperation with US company Raytheon.
In today's trial, a target missile was launched, and detected shortly afterwards by an MMR radar system, developed by Israel Aerospace Industries Ltd. (IAI) (TASE: ARSP.B1) subsidiary Elta Systems. Data from the target missile was transmitted from the radar system to a fire management center, and the David's Sling interceptor (called Stunner by Raytheon), was launched at it, progressed properly through all of its flight stages, and destroyed the target.
It has previously been estimated that the cost of one interception using the David's Sling system is $1 million.
Participating in the trial were representatives from the Homa Administration in the Ministry of Defense Administration for the Development of Weapons and Technological Infrastructure and the US Missile Defense Agency (MDA). The Ministry of Defense said that the trial was a significant milestone towards a soon-to-be-conducted definitive trial, on the way to delivering the system to the Israel air force air defense deployment and declaring it operational in the near future.
A reference scenario formulated by the Home Front Command and the IDF Planning Directorate mentions 100,000 rockets possessed by Hezbollah. During the war in the north, it was estimated that 1,500 rockets a day were launched against Israel. In the past, senior Ministry of Defense sources have made it clear that in a major campaign against Hezbollah, the Iron Dome missile defense system would be unable to provide complete protection to civilians, because the batteries possessed by the air force would be used to protect essential bases and strategic installations that the Shi'ite terrorist organization is likely to attack with massive and accurate fire.
The breakthrough David's Sling system is designed as a key part of Israel's multi-layer defense system against rockets and missiles. While Iron Dome is designed to intercept short-range rockets, David's Sling is designed to counter threats directed against Israel by Hezbollah by destroying medium-range heavy rockets and missiles. The system is also designed to intercept Cruise missiles and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), while the Arrow missile is designed to intercept ballistic missiles.
David's Sling fire management center was developed by Elbit Systems Ltd. (Nasdaq: ESLT; TASE: ESLT) unit Elisra Group.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on April 1, 2015
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