JERUSALEM – Israel Aerospace Industries and the Indian Government’s Defense Research and Development Organization have successfully tested the MRSAM, a medium-range-to-air missile system.
MRSAM has been jointly developed by IAI and DRDO over the past few years, and they tested the system in India during the last week of December, the Israeli company said.
The system was developed following one of the largest defense transactions in the history of Israel. In April 2017, IAI and India signed a $ 1.6 billion contract for the MRSAM system for Indian land forces. The development involved several Indian companies, such as Bharat Electronics Limited, Larsen & Toubro, and Bharat Dynamics Limited, as well as Israel’s Rafael Advanced Defense Systems.
The effort is one of the joint ventures underpinning Indian economic policy ‘Make in India’ in favor of defense development, which has had contracts with Israeli companies for decades to modernize India’s military.
“MRSAM Air and Missile Defense System is a leading innovative system that has once again proven its advanced capabilities against various threats,” said Boaz Levy, President and CEO of the IAI. involved in the development of the Barak 8 air defense system. (MRSAM is part of the Barak family.)
‘Every test in an air defense system is a complicated operational event and the COVID-19 restrictions significantly increase the complexity. This trial is further evidence of the strong partnership between IAI and India and the two countries, ‘Levy added.
IAI’s Barak family of air defense systems includes different levels of ranges, from 35 kilometers to 150 kilometers, and includes the Barak MX, which the company markets worldwide as a single, integrated solution against multiple simultaneous air threats. The MRSAM fills a middle distance (70 kilometers) in India.
The current test, according to IAI, “validated all components of the weapon system”.
“Israeli specialists and Indian scientists and officials took part in the test and saw it,” the company added. “The flight test showed different extreme reference scenarios, confirming different system capabilities.”
The test involved a mobile launcher and multimode radar. The IAI subsidiary Elta Systems makes multimode radar, the same type of radar used by Israel’s Iron Dome air defense system. The journey to and from the test site in India, and then back to Israel, was a challenge due to the pandemic, which required participants to be quarantined and work in capsules.
MRSAM is used by the Indian Air Force and Navy. The fleet version, called LRSAM, is based on the Barak 8 and was sold as part of a $ 777 million contract with India’s state-owned Bharat Electronics Limited for seven ships for the fleet in 2018. The Barak 8 intercepted its first operational on sea in 2015 and was effective on land in 2016. It can be used against threats at sea, such as the Russian Yakhont missile, and the IAI says that the land-based system poses a variety of threats, including warplanes, missiles and UAVs.
The Israeli company would not say how many systems the 2017 multi-billion dollar deal involves. The size of the Indian army, the country’s land mass and recent clashes have led to accelerated arms purchases. Israel’s Barak sales to the Indian Navy began with one ship, followed by seven and then five more.