Israel’s defense establishment conducted a successful and first-of-its-kind experiment with the Magen Or (Light Shield) laser system built by the Israeli defense industries, the IDF, and the Ministry of Defense, Kan11 News reported Thursday night. According to sources in the defense industry, the experiment met expectations and can be considered a breakthrough.
The Magan Or system is designed to intercept aerial threats such as rockets, unmanned aerial vehicles, and cruise missiles, and its main advantage is its significantly lower cost compared with kinetic interception systems that use missiles.
According to estimates, the system will become operational at the end of 2025 at the earliest.
In March 2022, then-Defense Minister Benny Gantz approved a huge order for the development and production of Magen Or from Rafael in collaboration with Elbit.
Then-Prime Minister Naftali Bennett wrote on social media: “When I said about two months ago, ‘We will surround Israel with a laser wall that will take away from the enemy the strongest card he has against us,’ there were skeptics who immediately jumped to explain why this was not possible or will take many years. Today we are going through another phase of the laser project, which is becoming, day by day, a reality. Instead of the enemy draining our coffers, we will impoverish the enemy. At the moment, the cost of intercepting an enemy rocket is infinitely higher than the cost of the rocket itself. The minute the laser systems are deployed and in full use, the interception cost will be close to zero.”
Magen Or uses a fiber laser to generate a laser beam to destroy an airborne target. Whether acting as a stand-alone system or with external cueing as part of an air-defense system, a threat is detected by a surveillance system and tracked by vehicle platforms in order to engage.
In 2016, the necessary power levels for an effective laser shield were reported to be “tens of kilowatts.” While official information is not available, a 2020 report said that Magen Or was thought to have a maximum effective range of up to 7 km, and could destroy missiles, drones, and mortar shells around four seconds after the twin high-energy fiber-optic lasers make contact with their target. Current estimates are that Magen Or can reach 100 kilowatts and hit targets 10 kilometers away.
