Israel test-fires new rocket propulsion system

Israel on Friday morning test-fired a rocket propulsion system at the Palmachim air force base south of Tel Aviv. According to a laconic Defense Ministry announcement, “The launch was part of a test that was planned by the defense establishment in advance, and it was carried out as planned.”

Details of the system that was tested weren’t forthcoming.

Israel has been developing a host of missile systems, many of them defensive, and some — at least according to foreign reports — offensive.

In early June, a military official said Israel was speeding up its development of the Arrow 3 long-range missile interception system.

The Arrow 3 would be able to target incoming nuclear or conventional missiles at a higher altitude than its shorter-ranged predecessor, the Arrow 2, said Col. Aviram Hasson, who heads the project.

“We’re thinking mostly about the nuclear threat,” he said, in a thinly veiled reference to Iran’s renegade nuclear program. The Arrow 3’s high-altitude capability makes it an ideal counter to nuclear missiles and to minimize the threat of fallout.

Hasson described Israel’s four-layered missile defense strategy: Iron Dome, protecting against smaller, short-range threats (up to 70 kilometers); David’s Sling, covering mid-range threats (70-200 kilometers); Arrow 2, for long-range attacks; and Arrow 3, for incoming missiles from up to 2,500 kilometers away.

The shorter-range systems are mostly meant to counter attacks from the Gaza Strip, Lebanon and Syria.

In November Israel conducted its first successful interception of a target missile by the new David’s Sling missile defense system, which is expected to come online in 2014.

On the offensive end, Israel has reportedly also been testing the Jericho 3, an intercontinental ballistic missile said to have a range of over 10,000 kilometers.

In November 2011 the Defense Ministry test-fired a ballistic missile at Palmachim, the site of Friday’s launch.