According to several media outlets since Sunday, the Israeli army managed to destroy a ballistic missile in space launched by Yemen’s Houthi rebels in mid-flight. This would be a first in military history, but this has not been confirmed by Tel Aviv. On the other hand, it is actually the first interception of a ballistic missile by Israel’s very sophisticated Arrow defense system.
Published on: July 11, 2023 – 7:17 p.m
6 mins
The war between Israel and Hamas is taking place on the ground, in the air with a spate of bombings and rocket launches, and perhaps from now on even in space.
The Jewish state would have succeeded for the first time in intercepting an enemy ballistic missile while it was outside the Earth’s atmosphere, more than 100 km above the ground, British daily The Telegraph said on Sunday, November 5. The information was then picked up by several media outlets, including the very reputable Israeli daily Haaretz.
This act, described by some media outlets such as the Jerusalem Post as “the first space skirmish in military history,” occurred on Tuesday, October 31, when Israel launched a ballistic missile in mid-flight that targeted the southern city of Eilat the country was heading towards.
Space or no space?
The missile, fired by pro-Iranian Houthi rebels in Yemen, bore the brunt of the first wartime use of Arrow, the Israeli anti-aircraft system designed for nearly 25 years “for the precise purpose of dealing with this type of extraordinary threat.” a long-range ballistic missile attack,” said Sim Tack, military analyst at Force Analysis, a conflict monitoring firm.
The Israeli army had already confirmed the use of Arrow – and more precisely Arrow-2, the second iteration (of three) of this defense system – against this Houthi missile last week, without going into details. In a statement, the Israeli General Staff said only that it carried out the interception “at the most appropriate time and place.” “There is no concrete evidence that Israel actually launched the missile in space, and the video released by the Israeli military does not allow us to say with certainty that it was destroyed before returning to the atmosphere,” summarizes Sim Tack.
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Rockets like the one launched by the Houthis can travel more than 900 km in a few minutes, and to travel that far their trajectory must form an arc that runs through space.
This is not a type of threat that Israel’s famous Iron Cathedral is effective against. “The Israeli air defense system consists of three layers: the Iron Dome to protect the territory from short-range missiles, the David Sling to defend against cruise missiles and certain aircraft, and the Arrow, which is designed to intercept the fastest missiles flying the highest,” summarizes Sim Tack.
Sophisticated and expensive
But ballistic missile defense devices don’t necessarily target all of space. “Ukraine has been firing Russian ballistic missiles for 18 months without having to intercept them in space,” notes Frank Ledwidge, an air warfare specialist at the University of Portsmouth. “The American Patriots, for example, are designed to destroy ballistic missiles at close range as they approach their target,” explains Sim Tack.
Only the most modern programs – such as the American Thaad system, the Russian S-500 or Arrow – provide for the possibility of interception outside the atmosphere. The challenge of accurately programming the point of impact of the anti-missile at such a distance is challenging. Especially since the target can fly at several kilometers per second. “In addition, it is much more difficult to correct possible trajectory errors when you are no longer in the atmosphere,” adds Sim Tack.
However, the possibility of launching a rocket at this distance from Earth has been known for decades. “In the 1980s and 1990s there were several interception tests in space, but they were abandoned because they produced debris that could be dangerous for satellites at that altitude,” explains Alexandre Vautravers, weapons specialist and editor-in-chief of the Swiss Military Review.
These sophisticated and very expensive systems – an Arrow rocket cost more than $3 million in the early 2000s – have a significant advantage: “If it misses its target in space, there is still time to try to intercept it if “It returns to its destination.” Atmosphere,” assures Sim Tack.
An essential feature in the eyes of Israelis. The Jewish state has feared for nearly thirty years that it would be overwhelmed by a shower of ballistic missiles from Iran and elsewhere, and the Arrow program represents a first firewall in that regard, said Uzi Rubin, an engineer who was one of the fathers of applies, in 2008 the Israeli air defense system.
Double success
But until now it was unclear whether Israel was right to spend billions – even though the United States provided more than 50% of the program’s funding – to equip itself with such a system.
It was successfully used for the first time in 2017. At that time, however, it was about the shooting down of a Syrian surface-to-air missile that had attacked an Israeli aircraft. Tel Aviv had used the Arrow device because the target’s trajectory “resembled” that of a ballistic missile. But it wasn’t a real test of whether this defense system worked as intended.
With the ballistic missile fired by the Houthis, Arrow had to face its natural opponent for the first time. And that is probably more important than the question of whether the target was destroyed in space or not. “The success of this interception proves in real life that those who developed Arrow did their job well,” confirms Sim Tack.
“It wasn’t just about defending the residents of Eilat,” an Israeli military official, who preferred to remain anonymous, told the Telegraph. “This helps prove to Iran that Israel has the means to counter its ballistic missile program,” he concludes.
Israel also managed a second interception on Saturday, November 4th. This time, the Israeli army claims it was a ballistic missile that was fired from Gaza and also targeted Eilat.