Jericho (missile)

Jericho (Hebrew: יריחו, romanized: Yericho) is a general designation given to a loosely-related family of deployed ballistic missiles developed by Israel since the 1960s. The name is taken from the first development contract for the Jericho I signed between Israel and Dassault in 1963, with the codename as a reference to the Biblical city of Jericho. As with some other Israeli high tech weapons systems, exact details are classified, though there are observed test data, public statements by government officials, and details in open literature especially about the Shavit satellite launch vehicle.

The later Jericho family development is related to the Shavit and Shavit II space launch vehicles believed to be derivatives of the Jericho II IRBM and that preceded the development of the Jericho III ICBM.^[1] The Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in the US concluded that the Shavit could be adapted as an ICBM carrying a 500 kg warhead over 7,500 km.^[2] Additional insight into the Jericho program was revealed by the South African series of missiles, of which the RSA-3 are believed to be licensed copies of the Jericho II/Shavit, and the RSA-4 that used part of these systems in their stack with a heavy first stage. Subsequent to the declaration and disarming of the South African nuclear program,^[3] the RSA series missiles were offered commercially as satellite launch vehicles, resulting in the advertised specifications becoming public knowledge.^[4]

The civilian space launch version of the Jericho, the Shavit, was studied in an air launched version piggybacked on a Boeing 747 similar to a U.S. experimental launch of the Minuteman ICBM from a C-5 Galaxy.^[5]