Jericho is a general designation given to a loosely-related family of deployed
ballistic missile
A ballistic missile is a type of missile that uses projectile motion to deliver warheads on a target. These weapons are guided only during relatively brief periods—most of the flight is unpowered. Short-range ballistic missiles stay within the ...
s developed by Israel starting in the 1960s. The name is taken from the first development contract for the Jericho I signed between Israel and
Dassault
Dassault Group (; also GIM Dassault or Groupe Industriel Marcel Dassault SAS) is a French group of companies established in 1929 with the creation of Société des Avions Marcel Bloch (now Dassault Aviation) by Marcel Dassault, and led by son Ser ...
in 1963, with the codename as a reference to the
Biblical
The Bible (from Koine Greek , , 'the books') is a collection of religious texts or scriptures that are held to be sacred in Christianity, Judaism, Samaritanism, and many other religions. The Bible is an anthologya compilation of texts of a ...
city of
Jericho
Jericho ( ; ar, أريحا ; he, יְרִיחוֹ ) is a Palestinian city in the West Bank. It is located in the Jordan Valley, with the Jordan River to the east and Jerusalem to the west. It is the administrative seat of the Jericho Gove ...
. As with most Israeli unconventional weapons systems, exact details are classified, though there are observed test data, public statements by government officials, and details in open literature especially about the
Shavit
Shavit ( he, שביט, link=no, meaning ''comet'') may refer to:
People Surname
* Ari Shavit (born 1957), Israeli reporter and writer
* Bradley Shavit Artson (born 1959), American rabbi
* Dorit Shavit (born 1949), Israeli ambassador
* Edna Shavit ...
satellite launch vehicle.
The later Jericho family development is related to the Shavit and Shavit II space
launch vehicle
A launch vehicle or carrier rocket is a rocket designed to carry a payload (spacecraft or satellites) from the Earth's surface to outer space. Most launch vehicles operate from a launch pad, launch pads, supported by a missile launch contro ...
s believed to be derivatives of the Jericho II
IRBM
An intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM) is a ballistic missile with a range of 3,000–5,500 km (1,864–3,418 miles), between a medium-range ballistic missile (MRBM) and an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM). Classifying b ...
and that preceded the development of the Jericho III
ICBM
An intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) is a ballistic missile with a range greater than , primarily designed for nuclear weapons delivery (delivering one or more thermonuclear warheads). Conventional, chemical, and biological weapons c ...
. The
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) is a federal research facility in Livermore, California, United States. The lab was originally established as the University of California Radiation Laboratory, Livermore Branch in 1952 in response ...
in the US concluded that the Shavit could be adapted as an ICBM carrying a 500 kg warhead over 7,500 km. Additional insight into the Jericho program was revealed by the South African series of missiles, of which the RSA-3 are believed to be licensed copies of the Jericho II/Shavit, and the RSA-4 that used part of these systems in their stack with a heavy first stage. Subsequent to the declaration and disarming of the
Nuclear programme of South Africa, the RSA series missiles were offered commercially as satellite launch vehicles, resulting in the advertised specifications becoming public knowledge.
The civilian space launch version of the Jericho, the Shavit, has been studied in an air launched version piggybacked on a
Boeing 747
The Boeing 747 is a large, long-range wide-body airliner designed and manufactured by Boeing Commercial Airplanes in the United States between 1968 and 2022.
After introducing the 707 in October 1958, Pan Am wanted a jet times its size, t ...
similar to a U.S. experimental launch of the
Minuteman
Minutemen were members of the organized New England colonial militia companies trained in weaponry, tactics, and military strategies during the American Revolutionary War. They were known for being ready at a minute's notice, hence the name. Mi ...
ICBM from a
C-5 Galaxy
The Lockheed C-5 Galaxy is a large military transport aircraft designed and built by Lockheed, and now maintained and upgraded by its successor, Lockheed Martin. It provides the United States Air Force (USAF) with a heavy intercontinental-ran ...
.
Jericho I
Jericho I was first publicly identified as an operational
short-range ballistic missile
A short-range ballistic missile (SRBM) is a ballistic missile with a range of about or less. In past and potential regional conflicts, these missiles have been and would be used because of the short distances between some countries and their relat ...
system in late 1971. It was long, in diameter, weighing . It had a range of and a
CEP of , and it could carry a payload estimated at . It was intended to carry a nuclear warhead.
Due to
Israel's ambiguity over its nuclear weapons program, the missile is classified as a ballistic missile. Initial development was in conjunction with France, Dassault provided various missile systems from 1963 and a type designated MD-620 was test fired in 1965. French co-operation was halted by an arms embargo in January 1968, though 12 missiles had been delivered from France.
Work was continued by
IAI at the
Beit Zachariah facility and the program cost almost $1 billion up to 1980, incorporating some U.S. technology.
Despite some initial problems with its guidance systems, it is believed that around 100 missiles of this type were produced.
In 1969, Israel agreed with the United States that Jericho missiles would not be used as "strategic missiles", with nuclear warheads, until at least 1972.
During the October 1973
Yom Kippur War
The Yom Kippur War, also known as the Ramadan War, the October War, the 1973 Arab–Israeli War, or the Fourth Arab–Israeli War, was an armed conflict fought from October 6 to 25, 1973 between Israel and a coalition of Arab states led by Egy ...
, with the initial surprise breakthroughs on both northern and southern borders by Arab armies, the alarmed Defense Minister
Moshe Dayan
Moshe Dayan ( he, משה דיין; 20 May 1915 – 16 October 1981) was an Israeli military leader and politician. As commander of the Jerusalem front in the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, Chief of Staff of the Israel Defense Forces (1953–1958) du ...
told Israeli Prime Minister
Golda Meir
Golda Meir, ; ar, جولدا مائير, Jūldā Māʾīr., group=nb (born Golda Mabovitch; 3 May 1898 – 8 December 1978) was an Israeli politician, teacher, and ''kibbutznikit'' who served as the fourth prime minister of Israel from 1969 to 1 ...
that "this is the end of the
third temple
The "Third Temple" ( he, , , ) refers to a hypothetical rebuilt Temple in Jerusalem. It would succeed Solomon's Temple and the Second Temple, the former having been destroyed during the Babylonian siege of Jerusalem in and the latter havin ...
."
He was warning of Israel's impending total defeat, but "Temple" was also the code word for
nuclear weapons
A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission (fission bomb) or a combination of fission and fusion reactions (thermonuclear bomb), producing a nuclear explosion. Both bomb ...
.
Dayan again raised the nuclear topic in a cabinet meeting, warning that the country was approaching a point of "last resort".
[Cohen, Avner.]
The Last Nuclear Moment
''The New York Times'', October 6, 2003. That night Meir authorized the assembly of thirteen nuclear weapon "physics packages" to arm Jericho I missiles at
Sdot Micha Airbase
Sdot Micha Airbase (in Hebrew: ) is an Israeli Air Force (IAF) missile base and depot, whose existence Israel neither confirms nor denies. It is situated in the center of Israel, halfway from Jerusalem to the Mediterranean Sea and extends nearly 1 ...
, and
F-4
The McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II is an American tandem two-seat, twin-engine, all-weather, long-range supersonic jet interceptor and fighter-bomber originally developed by McDonnell Aircraft for the United States Navy.Swanborough and Bo ...
aircraft at
Tel Nof Airbase
Tel Nof Israeli Air Force ( he, בָּסִיס חֵיל-הַאֲוִויר תֵּל נוֹף) , also known as Air Force Base 8, is one of three principal airbases of the Israeli Air Force. It is located near Rehovot, Israel.
Tel Nof houses seve ...
, for use against Syrian and Egyptian targets.
The range on the Jericho 1 is sufficient to strike major cities such as
Damascus
)), is an adjective which means "spacious".
, motto =
, image_flag = Flag of Damascus.svg
, image_seal = Emblem of Damascus.svg
, seal_type = Seal
, map_caption =
, ...
and
Cairo
Cairo ( ; ar, القاهرة, al-Qāhirah, ) is the capital of Egypt and its largest city, home to 10 million people. It is also part of the largest urban agglomeration in Africa, the Arab world and the Middle East: The Greater Cairo metro ...
from secured launch locations. They would be used if absolutely necessary to prevent total defeat, but the preparation was done in an easily detectable way, likely as a signal to the US.
U.S. Secretary of State
Henry Kissinger
Henry Alfred Kissinger (; ; born Heinz Alfred Kissinger, May 27, 1923) is a German-born American politician, diplomat, and geopolitical consultant who served as United States Secretary of State and National Security Advisor under the presid ...
learned of the nuclear alert on the morning of October 9. That day, in keeping with his deal and warning that prevented a preemptive Israeli attack on gathering Arab armies, President Nixon ordered the commencement of
Operation Nickel Grass
Operation Nickel Grass was a strategic airlift operation conducted by the United States to deliver weapons and supplies to Israel during the 1973 Yom Kippur War. Over 32 days, the United States Air Force (USAF) Military Airlift Command (MAC) sh ...
, a U.S. airlift to replace all of Israel's material losses. Anecdotal evidence suggests that Kissinger told Sadat that the reason for the U.S. airlift was that the Israelis were close to "going nuclear".
[Farr, Warner D.]
The Third Temple's Holy of Holies: Israel's Nuclear Weapons
. Counterproliferation Paper No. 2, USAF Counterproliferation Center, Air War College
The Air War College (AWC) is the senior Professional Military Education (PME) school of the U.S. Air Force. A part of the United States Air Force's Air University, AWC emphasizes the employment of air, space, and cyberspace in joint operation ...
, September 1999.
It is believed that all Jericho 1 missiles were taken out of service in the 1990s and replaced with the longer-range Jericho 2. The Jericho 1 missiles were housed in
Zekharia
Zekharia ( he, זְכַרְיָה) is a moshav in central Israel. Located near Beit Shemesh, it falls under the jurisdiction of Mateh Yehuda Regional Council. In it had a population of .
Geography
Zekharia is located off the road between Beit G ...
, located southeast of Tel Aviv and stationed in caves.
Jericho II
![Shavit 3rd stage](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/75/Shavit_3rd_stage.JPG)
The Jericho II (YA-3) is a solid fuel, two-stage
long-range ballistic missile system and a follow on from the Jericho I project. As many as 90 Jericho 2 missiles are currently based in caves near
Zekharia
Zekharia ( he, זְכַרְיָה) is a moshav in central Israel. Located near Beit Shemesh, it falls under the jurisdiction of Mateh Yehuda Regional Council. In it had a population of .
Geography
Zekharia is located off the road between Beit G ...
(
Sdot Micha Airbase
Sdot Micha Airbase (in Hebrew: ) is an Israeli Air Force (IAF) missile base and depot, whose existence Israel neither confirms nor denies. It is situated in the center of Israel, halfway from Jerusalem to the Mediterranean Sea and extends nearly 1 ...
), southeast of Tel Aviv.
A request from Israel for 1,100 mile (1,770 km) range
Pershing II
The Pershing II Weapon System was a solid-fuel rocket, solid-fueled multistage rocket, two-stage medium-range ballistic missile designed and built by Martin Marietta to replace the Pershing 1a Field Artillery Missile System as the United States ...
medium range ballistic missiles was rejected by the United States for inclusion as part of a military assistance incentive package offered in 1975 during negotiations over transferring the
Sinai
Sinai commonly refers to:
* Sinai Peninsula, Egypt
* Mount Sinai, a mountain in the Sinai Peninsula, Egypt
* Biblical Mount Sinai, the site in the Bible where Moses received the Law of God
Sinai may also refer to:
* Sinai, South Dakota, a place ...
from Israeli to Egyptian control as part of a US-brokered peace deal. Jericho II development began in 1977, and by 1986 there were reports of test firings. According to Missilethreat, a project of the
George C. Marshall Institute
The George C. Marshall Institute (GMI) was a nonprofit conservative think tank in the United States. It was established in 1984 with a focus on science and public policy issues and had an initial focus in defense policy. Starting in the late 198 ...
, there is evidence the Jericho II originated as a joint Israeli-Iranian project, cooperation that ended with the loss of friendly relations after the
1979 Islamist revolution overthrew the
Shah
Shah (; fa, شاه, , ) is a royal title that was historically used by the leading figures of Iranian monarchies.Yarshater, EhsaPersia or Iran, Persian or Farsi, ''Iranian Studies'', vol. XXII no. 1 (1989) It was also used by a variety of ...
's rule. There was a series of test launches into the
Mediterranean
The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa, and on the e ...
from 1987 to 1992, the longest at around 1,300 km, mostly from the
facility at Palmachim, south of
Tel Aviv
Tel Aviv-Yafo ( he, תֵּל־אָבִיב-יָפוֹ, translit=Tēl-ʾĀvīv-Yāfō ; ar, تَلّ أَبِيب – يَافَا, translit=Tall ʾAbīb-Yāfā, links=no), often referred to as just Tel Aviv, is the most populous city in the G ...
.
Jane's
Jane's Information Group, now styled Janes, is a global open-source intelligence company specialising in military, national security, aerospace and transport topics, whose name derives from British author Fred T. Jane.
History
Jane's Informatio ...
reports that a test launch of 1,400 km is believed to have taken place from South Africa's
Overberg Test Range
The Denel Overberg Test Range is a weapons systems testing facility in the Overberg region on the south coast of South Africa, near Arniston, Western Cape. It includes launch pads and tracking systems.
It was used to test the RSA series of Is ...
in June 1989.
The Jericho II is 14.0 m long and 1.56 m wide, with a reported launch weight of 26,000 kg (although an alternative launch weight of 21,935 kg has been suggested). It has a 1,000 kg payload, capable of carrying a considerable amount of high explosives or a 1
Megaton
Megaton may refer to:
* A million tons
* Megaton TNT equivalent, explosive energy equal to 4.184 petajoules
* megatonne, a million tonnes, SI unit of mass
Other uses
* Olivier Megaton (born 1965), French film director, writer and editor
* ''Me ...
yield nuclear warhead. It uses a two-stage solid propellant engine with a separating warhead. The missile can be launched from a silo, a railroad flat car, or a mobile vehicle. This gives it the ability to be hidden, moved quickly, or kept in a hardened silo, largely ensuring survival against any attack. It has an
active radar homing
Active radar homing (ARH) is a missile guidance method in which a missile contains a radar transceiver (in contrast to semi-active radar homing, which uses only a receiver) and the electronics necessary for it to find and track its target aut ...
terminal guidance system similar to that of the Pershing II, for very accurate strikes.
The Jericho II forms the basis of the three-stage, 23 ton
Shavit
Shavit ( he, שביט, link=no, meaning ''comet'') may refer to:
People Surname
* Ari Shavit (born 1957), Israeli reporter and writer
* Bradley Shavit Artson (born 1959), American rabbi
* Dorit Shavit (born 1949), Israeli ambassador
* Edna Shavit ...
NEXT satellite launcher, first launched in 1988 from Palmachim. From the performance of Shavit it has been estimated that as a ballistic missile it has a maximum range of about 7,800 km with a 500 kg payload.
The Jericho II as an available Israeli counterattack option to Iraqi missile bombardment in the 1991
Gulf War
The Gulf War was a 1990–1991 armed campaign waged by a 35-country military coalition in response to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. Spearheaded by the United States, the coalition's efforts against Iraq were carried out in two key phases: ...
is disputed.
Jane's
Jane's Information Group, now styled Janes, is a global open-source intelligence company specialising in military, national security, aerospace and transport topics, whose name derives from British author Fred T. Jane.
History
Jane's Informatio ...
at the time believed that Jericho II entered service in 1989. Researcher Seth Carus claims that, according to an Israeli source, the decision to operationally deploy the Jericho-2 was only made after 1994, several years after the Scud attacks had ended and a cease fire and disarmament regime were in place.
Raytheon Technologies
Raytheon Technologies Corporation is an American multinational aerospace and defense conglomerate headquartered in Arlington, Virginia. It is one of the largest aerospace and defense manufacturers in the world by revenue and market capitaliz ...
, quoting Soviet intelligence archives, showed them believing the Jericho-2 to have been fully developed weapon in 1989, but did not indicate when it was available for deployment. Investigators for the
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (CEIP) is a nonpartisan international affairs think tank headquartered in Washington D.C. with operations in Europe, South and East Asia, and the Middle East as well as the United States. Founded in ...
accessed commercial satellite images of the Sdot Micha Airbase near Zachariah, a suspected Jericho missile base, comparison shows expansion between 1989 and 1993 of the type that would accommodate suspected Jericho II launchers and missiles. Such an expansion would be more consistent with a post-1991 deployment chronology.
Jericho III
It is believed that the Jericho III (YA-4) is a nuclear-armed
ICBM
An intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) is a ballistic missile with a range greater than , primarily designed for nuclear weapons delivery (delivering one or more thermonuclear warheads). Conventional, chemical, and biological weapons c ...
that entered service in 2011.
The Jericho III is believed to have two or three-stages, using solid propellant and having a payload of 1,000 to 1,300 kg. The payload could be a single 750 kg (150–400
kiloton
TNT equivalent is a convention for expressing energy, typically used to describe the energy released in an explosion. The is a unit of energy defined by that convention to be , which is the approximate energy released in the detonation of a t ...
)
nuclear warhead or two or three low-yield
MIRV
A multiple independently targetable reentry vehicle (MIRV) is an exoatmospheric ballistic missile payload containing several warheads, each capable of being aimed to hit a different target. The concept is almost invariably associated with in ...
warheads. It has an estimated launch weight of 30,000 kg and a length of 15.5 m with a width of 1.56 m. It may be similar to an upgraded and re-designed
Shavit
Shavit ( he, שביט, link=no, meaning ''comet'') may refer to:
People Surname
* Ari Shavit (born 1957), Israeli reporter and writer
* Bradley Shavit Artson (born 1959), American rabbi
* Dorit Shavit (born 1949), Israeli ambassador
* Edna Shavit ...
space launch vehicle, produced by
Israel Aerospace Industries
Israel Aerospace Industries (Hebrew: התעשייה האווירית לישראל ''ha-ta'asiya ha-avirit le-yisra'el'') or IAI (תע"א) is Israel's major aerospace and aviation manufacturer, producing aerial and astronautic systems for both mi ...
. It probably has longer first and second-stage motors. It is estimated by missilethreat.com that it has a range of 4,800 to 6,500 km (2,982 to 4,038 miles),
though a 2004 missile proliferation survey by the Congressional Research Service put its possible maximum range at 11,500 km (missile range is
inversely proportional
In mathematics, two sequences of numbers, often experimental data, are proportional or directly proportional if their corresponding elements have a constant ratio, which is called the coefficient of proportionality or proportionality constan ...
to payload mass).
According to an official report that was submitted to the U.S. Congress in 2004, it may be that with a payload of 1,000 kg the Jericho III gives Israel nuclear strike capabilities within the entire Middle East, Africa, Europe, Asia and almost all parts of
North America
North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the Car ...
, as well as large parts of
South America
South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the southe ...
and North
Oceania
Oceania (, , ) is a region, geographical region that includes Australasia, Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia. Spanning the Eastern Hemisphere, Eastern and Western Hemisphere, Western hemispheres, Oceania is estimated to have a land area of ...
. Missile Threat reports: "The range of the Jericho 3 also provides an extremely high impact speed for nearby targets, enabling it to avoid any Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) defenses that may develop in the immediate region."
On 17 January 2008 Israel test fired a multi-stage ballistic missile believed to be of the Jericho III type, reportedly capable of carrying "conventional or non conventional warheads." On 2 November 2011, Israel successfully test fired a missile believed to be an upgraded version of the Jericho III at
Palmachim
Palmachim ( he, פַּלְמַחִים) is a kibbutz in central Israel. Located about ten kilometers south of the Gush Dan, Tel Aviv area along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea, among the sand dunes, it falls under the jurisdiction of Gan Raveh ...
; the long trail of smoke was seen throughout central Israel. Israel's intercontinental ballistic missile launchers are believed to be buried so deeply that they would survive a
first strike nuclear attack.
After a successful missile test launch conducted in early 2008, Israeli weapons expert General Itzhak Ben-Israel, former chairman of the Israeli Space Agency at the Ministry of Science, said "Everybody can do the mathematics... we can reach with a rocket engine to every point in the world", thus appearing to confirm Israel's new capability. Israeli Ministry of Defense officials said that the 2008 test launch represented a "dramatic leap in Israel's missile technologies".
After a further test in 2013 Alon Ben David published this opinion in an article in ''Aviation Week'' on the missile's range and throw weight: "Reportedly, Israel's Jericho III
intermediate-range ballistic missile
An intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM) is a ballistic missile with a range of 3,000–5,500 km (1,864–3,418 miles), between a medium-range ballistic missile (MRBM) and an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM). Classifying ba ...
is capable of carrying a 1,000-kg (2,204-lb.) warhead more than 5,000 km." Further tests conducted in July 2013 could have been for the Jericho 3 or possibly the Jericho 3A missile, a follow-up missile believed to have a new motor.
South African RSA Series
![RSA-3-002](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/eb/RSA-3-002.jpg)
The Jericho II/Shavit SLV was also license produced in the Republic of South Africa as the RSA series of space launch vehicles and ballistic missiles.
The RSA-3 was produced by the Houwteq (a discontinued division of
Denel
Denel SOC Ltd is a South African state-owned aerospace and military technology conglomerate established in 1992. It was created when the manufacturing subsidiaries of Armscor were split off in order for Armscor to become the procurement agency ...
) company at
Grabouw
Grabouw is a town located in the Western Cape province of South Africa. Grabouw is located some 65 km south-east of Cape Town, over Sir Lowry's Pass from Somerset West, along the N2 highway.The town is the commercial centre for the vast Elgin ...
, 30 km east of
Cape Town
Cape Town ( af, Kaapstad; , xh, iKapa) is one of South Africa's three capital cities, serving as the seat of the Parliament of South Africa. It is the legislative capital of the country, the oldest city in the country, and the second largest ...
. Test launches were made from
Overberg
__NOTOC__
Overberg is a region in South Africa to the east of Cape Town beyond the Hottentots-Holland mountains. It lies along the Western Cape Province's south coast between the Cape Peninsula and the region known as the Garden Route in the e ...
Test Range near
Bredasdorp
Bredasdorp is a town in the Southern Overberg region of the Western Cape, South Africa, and the main economic and service hub of that region. It lies on the northern edge of the Agulhas Plain, about south-east of Cape Town and north of Cape Agul ...
, 200 km east of Cape Town.
Rooi Els was where the engine test facilities were located. Development continued even after South African renunciation of its
nuclear weapons
A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission (fission bomb) or a combination of fission and fusion reactions (thermonuclear bomb), producing a nuclear explosion. Both bomb ...
for use as a commercial satellite launcher. Development actually reached its height in 1992 a year after nuclear renunciation with 50–70 companies involved, employing 1300–1500 people from the public and private sector. A much heavier ICBM or space launch vehicle, the RSA-4, with a first stage in the
Peacekeeper ICBM class but with Jericho-2/RSA-3 upper stage components was in development, the RSA-2 was a local copy of the Jericho II ballistic missile and the RSA-1 was a local copy of the Jericho II second stage for use as a mobile missile.
The missiles were to be based on the
RSA-3 and RSA-4 launchers that had already been built and tested for the South African space programme. According to
Al J Venter, author of ''How South Africa built six atom bombs'', these missiles were incompatible with the available large South African nuclear warheads, he claims that the RSA series being designed for a 340 kg payload would suggest a warhead of some 200 kg, "well beyond SA's best efforts of the late 1980s." Venter's analysis is that the RSA series was intended to display a credible delivery system combined with a separate nuclear test in a final diplomatic appeal to the world powers in an emergency even though they were never intended to be used in a weaponized system together. Three rockets had already been launched into suborbital trajectories in the late 1980s in support of development of the RSA-3 launched Greensat Orbital Management System (for commercial satellite applications of vehicle tracking and regional planning). Following the decision in 1989 to cancel the nuclear weapons program, the missile programs were allowed to continue until 1992, when military funding ended, and all ballistic missile work was stopped by mid-1993. In order to join the
Missile Technology Control Regime
The Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) is a multilateral export control regime. It is an informal political understanding among 35 member states that seek to limit the proliferation of missiles and missile technology. The regime was formed ...
, the government had to allow U.S. supervision of the destruction of key facilities applicable to both the long range missile and the space launch programmes.
In June 1994, the RSA-3 / RSA-4 South African satellite launcher program was cancelled.
See also
*
Shavit
Shavit ( he, שביט, link=no, meaning ''comet'') may refer to:
People Surname
* Ari Shavit (born 1957), Israeli reporter and writer
* Bradley Shavit Artson (born 1959), American rabbi
* Dorit Shavit (born 1949), Israeli ambassador
* Edna Shavit ...
*
Military equipment of Israel
The military equipment of Israel includes a wide array of arms, armored vehicles, artillery, missiles, planes, helicopters, and warships. Many of these are purchased overseas and many are indigenous designs. Until the Six-Day War of 1967, the Isr ...
*
List of missiles
Below is a list of missiles, sorted alphabetically into large categories and subcategories by name and purpose.
Other missile lists
Types of missiles:
* Conventional guided missiles
** Air-to-air missile
** Air-to-surface missile
** Anti-radiat ...
References
External links
* .
*
* .
* .
{{IAI aircraft
Ballistic missiles
Israeli nuclear development
Guided missiles of Israel
Israel–South Africa relations
MIRV capable missiles
MLM products
fr:Jéricho (missile)#Jéricho I