Iron Dome is a mobile all weather air defense system,
developed by Rafael Advanced Defense Systems
and Israel Aerospace Industries.
The system is designed to intercept and destroy short-range rockets
and artillery shells fired from distances
of 2.5 miles to 43 miles away,
and whose trajectory would take them to
an Israeli populated area.
The Iron Dome is designed to counter short-range rockets
and 155 mm artillery shells,
with a range of up to 43 miles or 70 kilometres.
According to its manufacturer,
Iron Dome will operate day and night,
under adverse weather conditions,
and can respond to multiple threats simultaneously.
Iron Dome is part of a future multi-tiered missile
defense system that Israel is developing,
which includes Arrow 2,
Arrow 3,
Iron Beam,
Barak 8 and David's Sling.
In addition to their land-based deployment,
Iron Dome batteries will in the future be deployed at sea
on Sa'ar 6-class corvettes,
where they will protect off-shore gas platforms in
conjunction with Israel's Barak 8 missile system.
Iron Dome was declared operational and initially deployed on
27 March 2011 near Beersheba.
On 7 April 2011,
the system successfully intercepted a BM-21
Grad launched from Gaza for the first time.
On 10 March 2012,
The Jerusalem Post reported that the system shot down
90% of rockets launched from Gaza,
that would have landed in populated areas.
Iron Dome has three central components.
It consists of Detection & Tracking Radar,
Battle Management & Weapon Control (BMC)
and Missile Firing Unit.
The Missile Firing Unit is the unit launches
the Tamir interceptor missile,
equipped with electro-optic sensors and several
steering fins for high maneuverability.
By November 2012,
official statements indicated that Iron Dome
had intercepted over 400 rockets.
By late October 2014,
the Iron Dome systems had intercepted over 1,200 rockets.
Israel hopes to increase the range of Iron Dome's interceptions,
from the current maximum of 43 miles to 160 miles
and make it more versatile,
so that it could intercept rockets coming
from two directions simultaneously.
In October 2014,
Rafael unveiled a naval version of the Iron Dome called C-Dome.
It is designed to protect vessels in blue and littoral
waters from ballistic trajectory and direct attack
weapons fired in saturation attacks.
C-Dome includes a 10-round canister loaded
with vertically-launched Tamir interceptors
for 360-degree coverage,
a feature not supported by the land-based Iron Dome system.
In June 2016,
it was revealed that the Iron Dome had been tested to
successfully intercept salvos of artillery shells,
which are typically difficult to destroy because of
the need to penetrate the thickness
of their metal casings to get to the warhead,
and "multiple" air-to-ground precision
guided munitions (PGMs)
similar to the Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM).