Rafael Unveils New Long-Range Air-To-Surface Missile

Equipped with either a penetration or blast fragmentation warhead, the Rocks missile can be fired from a significant standoff range, thus reducing exposure of the aircraft

A Rocks missile mounted on a fighter jet (Credit: Rafael)

Rafael is unveiling a new long-range, stand-off air-to-surface missile at the Aero India Air Show in Bengaluru, India, this week.

The new missile, called Rocks, can be used against high-value targets, stationary and re-locatable, even in theaters where the enemy employs effective GPS countermeasures, the Company said in a release.

Equipped with either a penetration or blast fragmentation warhead, the missile can destroy above-ground or well-defended underground targets in heavily surface-to-air-defended areas.

According to the Rafael, Rocks is launched from a significant stand-off range, well outside of the enemy's air-defense coverage area, and performs a high-velocity trajectory toward the target. This reduces the exposure of the aircraft to threats and improves the strike success rate.

The new missile uses its INS/GPS for midcourse navigation, while homing on to the target is performed by using its EO seeker and advanced image processing algorithms, which ensures hitting targets with great precision, overcoming GPS jamming or denial, the Company said.

“Rocks provides a cutting-edge and cost-effective solution that combines several combat-proven technologies inherited from our latest generation SPICE system. It effectively answers a growing demand for long-range, GPS-independent air-to-ground precision strike capability,” said Yuval Miller, Executive Vice President and General Manager of Rafael's Air & C4ISR Systems Division.

“Aero India is an excellent opportunity to present this new system, and we can proudly say that as of today, Rafael is well-situated in India with a broad industrial base, Joint-Ventures, indigenous companies, and a substantial Indian supply-chain, as part of our commitment to the ‘Make-In-India’ policy,” Miller added.

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The Rocks missile presented for the first time at the Rafael booth at Aero India 2019 (Photo courtesy of Rafael) 

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