Israel upgrades its Iron Dome missile defense system
Xinhua, February 23, 2017 Adjust font size:
Israel's defense ministry said Wednesday that it successfully concluded tests of a new, upgraded version of its Iron Dome anti-missile system.
The tests in southern Israel checked the ability of Iron Dome to intercept several targets simultaneously, the ministry said.
The experiments tested for the first the new Tamir interceptor, which was jointly developed by the United States and Israel.
Tamir was designed under a deal signed in 2014. "Under the agreement, Israel has committed to transfer some of the production of Iron Dome interceptors to the United States, which participates in financing this system," the statement read.
The production in the U.S. has been made mainly by Raytheon in cooperation with the U.S. Missile Defense Agency.
Iron Dome is an array of missile batteries which are designed to intercept short-range rockets, mostly from the Gaza Strip.
The system was first declared operational in 2011 and reportedly shot down 90 percent of the rockets launched from Gaza that would have hit populated areas. Endit