(NSI News Source Info) JERUSALEM - April 7, 2009: Israel successfully tested its Arrow ballistic missile interception system April 7, a costly project launched two decades ago aimed at countering strikes mainly from Iran. 
Diagram showing stages of missile interception by the Arrow ATBM System. The picture shows a hostile missile trajectory and that of the Black Sparrow air-launched target missile used in firing tests.
The Arrow (Hetz in Hebrew) intercepted and destroyed a ballistic missile comparable to Iran's Shahab-3, which can reach the Jewish state, that was fired by an Israeli fighter plane over the Mediterranean, a defense official said.
"This morning, the Arrow system performed a successful test," the defense ministry said in a statement.
"The success of the project marks a key step in its development plan and the improvement of the operational systems to offer a response to the growing threat of ballistic missiles in the region."
Defense Minister Ehud Barak, who watched the test from a helicopter, said that together with a number of other rocket and missile interception systems being developed, the Arrow project "will offer optimal protection from near and immediate strategic threats," the ministry statement said. 
An Arrow Weapon System battery has four or eight launch trailers, each with six launch tubes and missiles, a Launch Control Centre, a communications centre, a fire control centre and the units of a mobile Green Pine radar system.
It was the latest successful test of the Arrow, a project launched in 1988 during the now-defunct Star Wars program under then-U.S. President Reagan.
Arrow was stepped up after Israel was hit by 39 Iraqi Scud missiles during the Gulf War.
Development of the Arrow is now half-funded by the United States. Israel has carried out more than a dozen successful tests of the Arrow under various conditions.
Israel considers Iran to be its arch-foe following repeated statements by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for the Jewish state to be wiped off the map.
Israel, widely considered to be the Middle East's sole nuclear armed state, and Washington suspect Iran of trying to develop atomic weapons under the guise of its civilian nuclear program, a charge Tehran has repeatedly denied.
Diagram showing stages of missile interception by the Arrow ATBM System. The picture shows a hostile missile trajectory and that of the Black Sparrow air-launched target missile used in firing tests.
The Arrow (Hetz in Hebrew) intercepted and destroyed a ballistic missile comparable to Iran's Shahab-3, which can reach the Jewish state, that was fired by an Israeli fighter plane over the Mediterranean, a defense official said.
"This morning, the Arrow system performed a successful test," the defense ministry said in a statement.
"The success of the project marks a key step in its development plan and the improvement of the operational systems to offer a response to the growing threat of ballistic missiles in the region."
Defense Minister Ehud Barak, who watched the test from a helicopter, said that together with a number of other rocket and missile interception systems being developed, the Arrow project "will offer optimal protection from near and immediate strategic threats," the ministry statement said. An Arrow Weapon System battery has four or eight launch trailers, each with six launch tubes and missiles, a Launch Control Centre, a communications centre, a fire control centre and the units of a mobile Green Pine radar system.
It was the latest successful test of the Arrow, a project launched in 1988 during the now-defunct Star Wars program under then-U.S. President Reagan.
Arrow was stepped up after Israel was hit by 39 Iraqi Scud missiles during the Gulf War.
Development of the Arrow is now half-funded by the United States. Israel has carried out more than a dozen successful tests of the Arrow under various conditions.
Israel considers Iran to be its arch-foe following repeated statements by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for the Jewish state to be wiped off the map.
Israel, widely considered to be the Middle East's sole nuclear armed state, and Washington suspect Iran of trying to develop atomic weapons under the guise of its civilian nuclear program, a charge Tehran has repeatedly denied.
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