• Military Menu                       

• Introduction
• Systems
• Facilities
• Agencies
• Industry
• Operations
• Countries
• Hot Documents
• News
• Reports
• Policy
• Budget
• Congress
• Links

• WMD
• Intelligence
• Homeland Security
• Space

IS02 ROCKS Autonomous Extended Stand-Off Range ALBM

ROCKS is a new generation extended stand-off range air-to-surface missile designed to strike high-value stationary and relocatable targets in a GPS-denied arena. Equipped with either a penetration or blast fragmentation warhead, the missile can destroy above-ground or well protected underground targets in heavily surface-to-air defended areas.

Israel Aerospace Industries on 06 June 2024 unveiled a new air-launched variant of its Lora ballistic missile on June 6, a design the company claims will enhance Israel’s ability to provide long-range strike at rapid speed. The Lora has its origins in a ground based long-range artillery weapon system that the company demonstrated at ranges up to 400 km back in 2020. The new air-launched version was rolled out for the first time at the ILA Berlin Air Show. Air LORA and Rocks have broadly similar appearances, with characteristic large-diameter bodies, although Air LORA is a substantially larger weapon than Rocks.

“Rocks” is an advanced, extended stand-off range air-to-surface missile, which may be used against high value targets, stationary and re-locatable, even in theaters where the enemy employs effective GPS countermeasures. 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. “Rocks” is launched at a very significant standoff range, well outside of the enemy’s air-defence coverage area, and performs a high velocity trajectory towards the target. This minimizes the launch aircraft exposure to threats, as well as improves the strike success rate.

The pilot allocates a mission for the missile before release. The mission includes target coordinates, impact angle and azimuth, topographic imagery data, and fuse delays. ROCKS is released well outside of the surface-to-air defended area, and performs a high-velocity trajectory to minimize attrition of both launching aircraft and missile, providing high target kill success.

The missile uses its INS/GPS for conducting its midcourse trajectory. Homing, up to target destruction, is performed by using its scene-matching technology or Anti-Radiation capability, overcoming any GPS jamming scenario.

The missile incorporates RAFAEL’S advanced technologies inherited from the legacy Popeye and SPICE combat-proven air-to-surface weapons. ROCKS has day, night, and all-weather capabilities, based on the advanced electro-optical seeker. The Automatic Target Acquisition algorithm, with its unique scene-matching and Anti-Radiation technologies, overcomes GPS jamming, navigation, and Target Location Errors.

Rafael unveiled the new long range stand-off air-to-surface missile at the Aero India Air Show in Bengaluru, India, in February 2019. “Rocks” provides a cutting edge and cost-effective solution that combines several combat-proven technologies inherited from our latest generation SPICE system. Rocks 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.

Operating autonomously, and launched at an extended stand-off range well outside the areas of heavily-defended surface-to-air threats, ROCKS incorporates RAFAEL’s advanced technologies inherited from the legacy Popeye and SPICE air-to-surface weapons. The pilot allocates a mission for the missile before its release, including target type, coordinates, impact angle and azimuth, topographic imagery data, and fuse delays. ROCKS uses its INS/GPS for midcourse navigation trajectory. Homing, up to target impact, is performed by using scene matching or Anti-Radiation technology - enabling high precision hits. An advanced EO seeker, together with the AntiRadiation homing, enables day, night and all weather operation. Automatic Target Acquisition, using a unique scene-matching algorithm and Anti-Radiation technology, overcomes any GPS jamming scenario, as well as navigation and Target Location Errors.

“Air-launch” is defined as two or more air-vehicles joined and working together, that eventually separate in flight, and that have a combined performance greater than the sum of the individual parts. The use of the air-launch concept has taken many forms across civil, commercial, and military contexts throughout the history of aviation. From the very beginning of heavier-than-air flight, air-launch has been envisioned as a means of enhancing the performance of an air-vehicle. In 1892, the United States (U.S.) Patent Office, responding to Louis Mouillard’s patent application for a rigid-wing glider, explains: “Examining the project presented we believe that the described invention as a whole is not practical, since the machine cannot rise without a balloon”. The patent office was not convinced that a glider, by itself, could take flight. A glider needed another air-vehicle to join with it to enhance its performance.

World War II spurred guided munitions development at an unprecedented rate, perhaps chiefly with the idea of the “flying bomb.” More insightfully categorized as early cruise missiles, flying bombs were explosive-laden aerial vehicles that could follow a specific flight path to plow into enemy targets near and far. Flying bombs needed wings, control surfaces, guidance, and in some cases, engines to reach their targets, but they did not need landing gear. After all, they were not meant to survive their flights. It made sense to launch these gear-less flying bombs from carrier aircraft. In addition, air-launch gave flying bombs speed and altitude boosts, effectively extending their range.

The quest to fly faster than the speed of sound did not begin with the Bell X-1 airplane made famous by Chuck Yeager. Others attempted the feat before Yeager, but many of those aircraft were based on conventional aircraft design. For example, the de Havilland DH 108 prototypes TG 306 and VW120 were specifically designed for highspeed testing, but were based on the conventional de Havilland Vampire jet fighter engine and fuselage. The TG 306 prototype was the first British attempt to achieve supersonic flight in a dive, but broke apart in flight and crashed, killing the pilot. The Americans, however, took a different tack. Air-launch has enabled flight researchers to simplify experimental aircraft, enhance vehicle performance, and focus flight tests on test objectives. This air-launch research has been utilized in the quest to achieve and refine supersonic flight and in the development of unique space flight systems. Air-launch has been a key enabler to the history of experimental flight, and stands primed to continue that role.

The advantage of using one air vehicle to enhance the performance of another air vehicle has also been considered and utilized for space launch. There are several air-launch systems, both suborbital and orbital, that have been tested and developed in the past, or that are being developed or envisioned for the future. In this section, we will examine the most prominent examples of air-launch for space access.

In the late 1950s into the early 1960s the U.S. worked on the development of air-launched ballistic missiles under the Weapon Systems 199 (WS-199) program. Two test missiles were flown: the WS-199B Bold Orion, which was air-launched from a Boeing B-47B Stratojet bomber and consisted of a Sergeant solid propellant first stage and an Altair solid propellant second stage, and the WS-199C High Virgo, also using Sergeant and Altair first and second stages, which was air-launched from a Convair B-58 Hustler bomber.

The air-launch ballistic missile concept was developed into the Douglas GAM-87 Skybolt missile, a two-stage solid propellant missile. The Skybolt air-launch ballistic missile flew a Mach 12.4 (9500 mph) ballistic trajectory, and had a maximum range of 1850 km (1150 miles). The tailcone on the end of the missile reduced the missile drag while being carried by the launch aircraft, thus minimizing the decrease in aircraft range from the additional drag of carrying the missile. The tailcone was jettisoned upon ignition of the first stage solid rocket motor. In addition to the B-52 bomber, the Skybolt was also to have been used on the British Avro Vulcan bomber. Skybolt test missiles were only launched from B-52 bombers. The Skybolt test program suffered a series of failures with the first 5 flights being unsuccessful, combined with cost and political factors; the result was the cancellation of the program. Ironically, the first successful Skybolt flight occurred the day after the program was cancelled.

The motivations to use air-launch have varied. In every case, however, use of air-launch was motivated by an advantage gained through multiple air-vehicles joined and working together, rather than each air-vehicle working independently. These advantages can be summarized as: aero-performance gains, simplified systems, increased tactical advantage, or increased mission flexibility.

Maintaining a decisive edge in today’s battlespaces requires precise targeting of both surface and underground targets, as well as minimizing risk to the strike aircraft. ROCKS is a next generation extended standoff air-to-surface missile. It is designed to strike high-value stationary and relocatable targets above ground, or underground, heavily fortified targets, with pinpoint accuracy in GPS-denied arenas. The missile can be equipped with either a penetration or blast fragmentation warhead.