The Ministry of Defense’s Weapons Development Department and Rafael announced Wednesday evening that a series of tests conducted in recent weeks on the “Or Eitan” system — previously called “Magen Or” — concluded successfully. During the tests, held at the Shdema range in the country’s south, rockets, missiles, mortars, drones and loitering munitions were intercepted in multiple salvos and a variety of firing scenarios by a concentrated, high-power laser beam operating at 100 watts per interception point and with a range of many kilometers.
Over the past two years of fighting, an initial, limited version of the system — with shorter range and lower beam concentration — was tested successfully in combat, intercepting dozens of drones and rockets, mainly from Lebanon. The new system operates at much higher interception powers and much longer ranges, while remaining part of the low-altitude defense layer — as a complement to Iron Dome and below the higher-altitude defenses of the David’s Sling system and Arrow batteries that intercept high-altitude threats.
(Video: Defense Ministry)
The system is currently undergoing operational integration with the Israeli Air Force and is expected to begin intercepting threats as early as next year. The defense establishment decided to rename the system from “Magen Or” to “Or Eitan,” after the first soldier killed during a maneuver in southern Lebanon exactly one year ago, Capt. Eitan Oster, of the Egoz unit — the son of Dovi Oster, one of the system’s principal designers and developers. In English the system will be called “Laser Dome,” analogous to Iron Dome.
“This is a world-class historic milestone,” the defense establishment said. “After thousands of years of warfare, for the first time there is a system that can use a laser beam to intercept most types of threats at multiple ranges. We must begin investing now in the next technologies. This system is only one milestone, the first step in building a full capability in the laser domain that will later operate at greater power levels, both as an offensive means and for airborne operation.
“We are at the beginning of a revolution that Israel is leading, and that will fundamentally change the battlefield,” they added. “The laser will break the economic equation and create a vast gap between the cost of interception — a few shekels — and the cost of the munitions being intercepted.”
One of the developers said, “This is a first-of-production-line system with performance that continues to improve. In the tests we intercepted dozens of targets under various conditions, hitting a point at the edge of the beam the size of a coin. That ensures stability against a moving object and allows its immediate defeat after it has left the launcher or after it has taken off. We are already initiating the next phase with a dual-interception laser capability. We overcame difficulties associated with firing a laser in weather conditions such as cloud cover, and in 90 percent of weather situations the system will operate.”
Despite the almost negligible cost of a single interception, the beam launchers themselves are very expensive. The ministry says it has already allocated procurement funding for several systems for the Israel Defense Forces, and promises that as foreign procurement grows through defense exports, the ongoing costs of development and acquisition will decrease. “After hundreds of intercepts — meaning after only a few days of escalation — each such launcher, though costly, will pay for itself and cover its investment,” the Ministry of Defense and Rafael said.