Rafael Advanced Defense Systems

Rafael Advanced Defense Systems Ltd. ( he, רפאל - מערכות לחימה מתקדמות בע"מ, formerly Rafael Armament Development Authority), ("Rafael" from Hebrew acronym of "Authority for the Development of Armaments" - ) is an Israeli defense technology company. It was founded as Israel's National R&D Defense Laboratory for the development of weapons and military technology within the Israeli Ministry of Defense; in 2002 it was incorporated as a limited company.

Rafael develops and produces weapons, military, and defense technologies for the Israel Defense Forces and for export abroad. All current projects are classified.

History

Rafael was established in 1948 as the Science Corps ( he, חיל המדע, known by the acronym HEMED, he, חמד) under the leadership of Shlomo Gur. It was renamed the Research and Design Directorate () in 1952. In 1952 David Ben-Gurion decided to split the activities of HEMED into two agencies. The pure scientific research was left with HEMED, while the development of weapons was placed into the new EMET agency.

In 1954 Ben-Gurion decided to change the name of EMET to ''RAFAEL''. It was reorganized as Rafael in 1958.

In 1995, Yitzhak Rabin asked Amos Horev to become chairman of the board of Rafael, following many years in which Horev had served as chairman of Rafael's advisory committee. Horev served as chairman until January 2001.

Restructuring as a limited company

During the early 1990s Rafael was operating at a loss (peaking in 1995, with a loss of $120 million on a turnover of $460 million). Therefore, it was decided to restructure the organization and start operating Rafael as a company. Initially the new company had three discrete divisions, each operating as a profit centre, with a separate balance sheet presented to the newly formed management board.

The restructuring was completed in 2002 when Rafael was formally incorporated as a limited company (although still as a government-owned corporation), while maintaining its technological capabilities through an investment of about 10% of turnover in R&D programs. In its first year as a limited company, Rafael earned a $37 million profit on $830 million in sales. By 2016, Rafael reported annual net profits of 473 million ILS (roughly 130 million dollars), up 3%, compared with ILS 459 million in 2015. New orders in 2016 totaled ILS 10.7 billion, and sales amounted to ILS 8.32 billion, 6% more than in 2015. The company's orders backlog as of the end of 2016 was ILS 21.72 billion, 12% more than at the end of 2015.

On October 14, 2007, the company changed its name from Rafael Armament Development Authority Ltd. to Rafael Advanced Defense Systems Ltd.

Technological achievements

* Shafrir (later renamed Python) – one of the most successful air-to-air missiles ever made (during the 1973 Yom Kippur War, the IAF launched 176 Shafrir 2 missiles, destroying 106 enemy aircraft)
* Spike – a fourth generation fire-and-forget anti-tank guided missile
* Popeye

HOME


Content is Copyleft
Website design, code, and AI is Copyrighted (c) 2014-2017 by Stephen Payne


Consider donating to Wikimedia



As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases