October 21, 2010:  Israel is forming a third battery of Arrow anti-missile missiles, and it will be in service by early next year. The battery will have the new Oren Adir (Magnificent Pine) radar, which has a longer range and is better able to identify potential targets than the existing Green Pine radar. The two current batteries have over a hundred missiles available. An Arrow battery has 4-8 launchers, and each launcher carries a six missiles in containers. The Arrow was developed to knock down Scud type missiles fired from Syria, Saudi Arabia or Iraq. The two ton Arrow 1 is being replaced with the 1.3 ton Arrow 2, which can shoot down longer range ballistic missiles fired from Iran. Israel is currently developing and testing an upgraded Arrow 2, which can take down longer range Iranian missiles. The even more effective Arrow 3 is not expected to be ready for use for at least four years. Israel is also looking into buying a land based version of the American Aegis anti-missile missile, which has a longer range than Arrow 2.

The United States has also agreed to continue sharing the expense of developing the Israeli Arrow anti-missile missile system. This will include contributing over a hundred million dollars for work on the Arrow 3. More than half the nearly three billion dollar cost of developing and building Arrow has come from the United States. In addition, American firms have done some of the development work, or contributed technology. The U.S. has also provided Israel with a mobile X-band radar that enables it to detect incoming ballistic missiles father away. Currently, the Israeli Green Pine radar can only detect a ballistic missile fired from Iran when the missile warhead is about two minutes from hitting a target in Israel. The X-band radar allows the Iranian missile to be spotted when it is 5-6 minutes away, enabling the Israeli Arrow anti-missile missile to hit the Iranian warhead farther away and with greater certainty. The Arrow 3 is expected to need something like the X-band radar, to take advantage of the longer missile range. The Arrow 3 could also use satellite or UAV warnings of distant ballistic missile launches. Arrow 3 weighs about half as much as Arrow 2 and costs about a third less. First tests of Arrow 3 are to take place next year.

This year, Israel began increasing the production of its Arrow anti-missile missiles. Costing over three million dollars each, and partly constructed in the United States (by Boeing), the Arrow missiles are Israel's principal defense against Syrian and Iranian ballistic missiles. Since Arrow entered service ten years ago, only about 120 missiles have been built. Currently, Israel has about a hundred Arrows available, and would like to increase that to 150 or 200 in the next few years.