{ "archive_path": "archive/1789596210.012255", "base_url": "www.twz.com/air/israel-is-bringing-spice-1000-standoff-weapon-to-the-f-35", "basename": "israel-is-bringing-spice-1000-standoff-weapon-to-the-f-35", "bookmarked_date": "2026-09-16 22:03", "canonical": { "archive_org_path": "https://web.archive.org/web/www.twz.com/air/israel-is-bringing-spice-1000-standoff-weapon-to-the-f-35", "dom_path": "output.html", "favicon_path": "favicon.ico", "git_path": "git/", "google_favicon_path": "https://www.google.com/s2/favicons?domain=www.twz.com", "headers_path": "headers.json", "htmltotext_path": "htmltotext.txt", "index_path": "index.html", "media_path": "media/", "mercury_path": "mercury/content.html", "pdf_path": "output.pdf", "readability_path": "readability/content.html", "screenshot_path": "screenshot.png", "singlefile_path": "singlefile.html", "warc_path": "warc/", "wget_path": "www.twz.com/air/israel-is-bringing-spice-1000-standoff-weapon-to-the-f-35.html" }, "domain": "www.twz.com", "extension": "", "hash": "P22EH70BAX1VDGXDFVA4", "history": { "archive_org": [], "dom": [], "favicon": [ { "cmd": [ "curl", "--silent", "--location", "--compressed", "--max-time", "120", "--output", "favicon.ico", "--user-agent", "Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/118.0.0.0 Safari/537.36 ArchiveBox/0.7.4 (+https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox/) curl/curl 8.14.1 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu)", "https://www.google.com/s2/favicons?domain=www.twz.com" ], "cmd_version": "curl 8.14.1 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu)", "end_ts": "2026-09-17T01:25:08.083110+00:00", "index_texts": null, "output": "favicon.ico", "pwd": "/data/archive/1789596210.012255", "schema": "ArchiveResult", "start_ts": "2026-09-17T01:25:07.530624+00:00", "status": "succeeded" } ], "git": [], "headers": [ { "cmd": [ "curl", "--silent", "--location", "--compressed", "--head", "--max-time", "120", "--user-agent", "Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/118.0.0.0 Safari/537.36 ArchiveBox/0.7.4 (+https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox/) curl/curl 8.14.1 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu)", "https://www.twz.com/air/israel-is-bringing-spice-1000-standoff-weapon-to-the-f-35" ], "cmd_version": "curl 8.14.1 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu)", "end_ts": "2026-09-17T01:25:08.379521+00:00", "index_texts": null, "output": "headers.json", "pwd": "/data/archive/1789596210.012255", "schema": "ArchiveResult", "start_ts": "2026-09-17T01:25:08.091086+00:00", "status": "succeeded" } ], "htmltotext": [], "media": [], "mercury": [ { "cmd": [ "/app/node_modules/@postlight/parser/cli.js", "https://www.twz.com/air/israel-is-bringing-spice-1000-standoff-weapon-to-the-f-35" ], "cmd_version": "1.0.0", "end_ts": "2026-09-17T01:25:43.108379+00:00", "index_texts": null, "output": "mercury", "pwd": "/data/archive/1789596210.012255", "schema": "ArchiveResult", "start_ts": "2026-09-17T01:25:40.646203+00:00", "status": "succeeded" } ], "pdf": [], "readability": [ { "cmd": [ "/app/node_modules/readability-extractor/readability-extractor", "/tmp/tmpgb25ctox", "https://www.twz.com/air/israel-is-bringing-spice-1000-standoff-weapon-to-the-f-35" ], "cmd_version": "0.0.11", "end_ts": "2026-09-17T01:25:40.636130+00:00", "index_texts": [ "Israel\u2019s Rafael and Lockheed Martin are working to accelerate integration of the 1,000-pound-class SPICE standoff weapon with the Israeli Air Force\u2019s F-35I Adir. The development could potentially open the door for the precision-guided munition to be offered to other Joint Strike Fighter operators.\n\n\n\nRafael Advanced Defense Systems announced the effort September 15 during the\u00a0Air & Space Forces Air, Space and Cyber Symposium\u00a0that\u00a0TWZ\u00a0is attending. The work is being conducted as a joint project with Lockheed Martin at the U.S. contractor\u2019s facilities in the United States and is expected to take several months.\n\n\n\n\n\n\nAFA 2026: For the first time, Rafael's SPICE 1000 is being integrated on the F-35Rafael Advanced Defense Systems Ltd. is integrating its SPICE 1000 air-to-surface munition on the F-35 Adir fighter aircraft.SPICE 1000 is an advanced air-to-surface munition capable of striking\u2026 pic.twitter.com/QOeNISGKFE\u2014 Rafael Advanced Defense Systems (@RAFAELdefense) September 15, 2026\n\n\n\n\n\nRafael says the effort could eventually make the weapon available to other F-35 operators. \u201cAt a later stage, F-35 operators worldwide will be able to field SPICE 1000,\u201d the company said.\n\n\n\nThe effort was previously referenced in U.S. government documentation before Rafael\u2019s announcement. Published in August, the Pentagon F-35 Modernized Selected Acquisition Report identified the weapon as the \u201cIsrael-unique Smart, Precise Impact, Cost-Effective 1000B,\u201d or SPICE 1000B, and said its integration was progressing \u201cwith a strategy to accelerate the implementation via a SPICE Lite process.\u201d\n\n\n\nThe report does not explain what the \u201cSPICE Lite\u201d process entails.\n\n\n\nSPICE \u2014 which stands for Smart, Precise Impact, and Cost-Effective \u2014 is a family of electro-optically guided standoff weapons developed by Rafael. The family includes SPICE 2000, SPICE 1000, and SPICE 250, with the numbers corresponding broadly to the weight class of the underlying warheads.\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\t\tSPICE 250, SPICE 1000 & SPICE 2000 Air-to-Surface Missiles\t\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\nBased around a 1,000-pound-class bomb, SPICE 1000 uses pop-out wings to achieve a manufacturer-stated range of approximately 125 kilometers, or 78 miles. Rafael gives the weapon a claimed circular error probable of around three meters.\n\n\n\nThe glide bomb combines inertial and satellite-aided navigation with an electro-optical seeker. During the terminal phase, its seeker can compare the observed target area with stored imagery using scene-matching algorithms, allowing the weapon to continue its attack without relying exclusively on GPS. That feature allows it to engage targets autonomously, offering the launch aircraft a true \u2018fire and forget\u2019 capability, and provides resilience in GPS-denied or GPS-degraded environments.\n\n\n\nSPICE can also be programmed to approach a target from a particular azimuth and impact angle. This provides flexibility in selecting the terminal attack geometry and can support steep attack profiles against targets where penetration from above is desirable.\n\n\n\nSPICE 1000 is not a new Israeli capability. It has been operational with the Israel Air Force since 2017 and is already integrated with Israeli F-16I Sufa, F-16C/D Barak, F-15I Ra\u2019am, and F-15 Baz fighters.\n\n\n\nAn F-15 Baz configured for precision strike, with a pair of 2,000-pound Rafael SPICE standoff weapons on the underwing pylons. Amit Agronov \n\n\n\n\u201cSPICE 1000 has been sold to several countries and is in operational service with a number of air forces worldwide,\u201d Rafael said. \u201cIt has served as a primary munition of the Israeli Air Force for several years, including extensive use in recent long-range operations flown from F-15 and F-16 aircraft.\u201d\n\n\n\nThe Israeli Air Force has released footage showing SPICE weapons being used during recent operations, including imagery from the weapon\u2019s own perspective during its terminal attack.\n\n\n\n\n\n\nIsraeli Air Force F-15 Bazs preparing for a strike on Iran, each carrying a pair of Spice 1000 glide bombs. Notably, one of the F-15s, tail no. 450, took part in Operation Wooden Leg exactly 40 years ago, striking PLO targets in Tunisia. pic.twitter.com/FEy6PiDkdU\u2014 OSINTtechnical (@Osinttechnical) June 15, 2025\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCombat validated. The stand-off strike capability air forces are asking about. SPICE 250 at Farnborough.Pinpoint accuracy against high-value targets. Real operational results.Full details in our exhibition press release: https://t.co/FWYYvcM0Vw pic.twitter.com/lQV8sw32zN\u2014 Rafael Advanced Defense Systems (@RAFAELdefense) July 22, 2026\n\n\n\n\n\nIsrael\u2019s F-35I is already unusual within the international Joint Strike Fighter fleet. The IDF has developed and demonstrated an external Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) carriage capability, and said in March 2025 that the Israeli Adir was the only F-35 to have conducted operational strikes with an external weapons configuration. You can read more about that here.\n\n\n\nThe unique instrumented F-35I assigned to the Israeli Flight Test Center carrying four external 2,000-pound class GBU-31 JDAMs. A single AIM-120 AMRAAM air-to-air missile can be seen in one of the internal weapons bays, which may also house another internal JDAM. Israeli Air Force \n\n\n\nHowever, according to The Jerusalem Post, the SPICE weapon is expected to be carried internally by F-35Is equipped with Technology Refresh 3, or TR-3, hardware, which would maintain its low-observable configuration. Neither Rafael nor Lockheed Martin has publicly detailed the specific carriage configuration, aircraft modifications or software associated with the current integration effort.\n\n\n\nThe long-delayed TR-3 is a major upgrade to the F-35\u2019s computing architecture and provides the processing infrastructure required for subsequent Block 4 capabilities. Israel received its first three F-35Is equipped with TR-3 hardware in January of this year.\n\n\n\nLockheed Martin describes Block 4 as the F-35 program\u2019s \u201cmost significant evolution of F-35 capabilities to date,\u201d encompassing more than 70 major upgrades, including increased weapons capacity, advanced electronic warfare capabilities, and improved target recognition.\n\n\n\nSome of the unclassified upgrades within Block 4. The exact configuration has not been publicly disclosed.\u00a0U.S. Department of Defense \n\n\n\nIt remains unclear if the SPICE 1000 integration itself requires the full Block 4 configuration.\n\n\n\nThe potential significance of the Israeli integration extends beyond the Israel Air Force. If SPICE 1000 ultimately becomes available to other F-35 operators, the completed Israeli integration could provide those countries with another pathway toward fielding a precision standoff weapon rather than requiring them to begin an integration effort entirely from scratch.\n\n\n\nIntegrating national weapons onto the F-35 can be a lengthy process. It involves not only the weapon itself, but aircraft software, interfaces, weapons-bay compatibility, flight testing, mission-system integration and certification within the U.S.-led F-35 program.\n\n\n\nThe United Kingdom\u2019s experience with MBDA\u2019s SPEAR 3 provides a good example of the challenges.\n\n\n\nIn 2022, the U.K. Ministry of Defence said that scheduled delivery dates for SPEAR 3 had been delayed because of \u201cprioritisation in the overall F-35 development programme,\u201d which is managed by the U.S.-led F-35 Joint Program Office.\n\n\n\nAn artist\u2019s impression of an F-35 armed with SPEAR 3 and Meteor missiles.\u00a0MBDA \n\n\n\nThe program has continued to progress, including F-35B integration work and flight testing. But in June 2026, the U.K. government said that completion of mission-systems integration and jettison trials remained part of a wider weapons-integration program and that SPEAR 3 integration and subsequent release to service would occur in the early 2030s.\n\n\n\nThe United Kingdom has consequently approved the acquisition of the GBU-53/B Small Diameter Bomb II as an interim standoff weapon for the F-35B until SPEAR 3 enters service.\n\n\n\nNevertheless, another F-35 operator would not be able to adopt the Israeli SPICE integration without additional work. National configurations, software baselines, certification requirements, weapons procurement, and export approvals would still have to be addressed.\n\n\n\nAlready, however, aided by its uniquely configured test jet, Israel has demonstrated an unusual ability to integrate nationally developed capabilities onto its F-35I. This has been aided by privileged access to the Joint Strike Fighter\u2019s\u00a0closely guarded\u00a0software codes.\n\n\n\nThe Israeli Air Force F-35I test jet on the flight line together with an F-15I strike fighter.\u00a0Amit Agronov/Israeli Air Force \n\n\n\nA U.K. parliamentary report noted delays in integrating British weapons onto the F-35B while contrasting that with Israel\u2019s ability to integrate domestic electronic warfare systems, sensors, and communications technology onto its Adir.\n\n\n\nMeanwhile, Rafael and Lockheed Martin already have experience working together on the SPICE family.\n\n\n\nThe companies signed a teaming agreement in 2019 covering the joint development, marketing and manufacture of SPICE guidance kits for the U.S. market. In 2021, they expanded the agreement to include SPICE 250, including development for potential sales to the United States and Poland. With some unque capabilities, SPICE could be of particular interest to the U.S. military, especially as it seeks to leverage multiple sources of precision munitions.\n\n\n\nThe SPICE family also extends beyond the 1,000-pound-class weapon now being integrated with the F-35.\n\n\n\nAt the other end of the family is SPICE 250, a much smaller weapon designed around a 250-pound-class payload. It incorporates a man-in-the-loop capability that allows an operator to redirect the weapon during its flight and abort the attack if necessary.\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\t\tSPICE 250 \u2013 Stand-Off Air-to-Surface Weapon System\t\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\nIts smaller dimensions also allow substantially greater weapon carriage. Rafael has marketed configurations in which a fighter can carry as many as 16 SPICE 250 weapons.\n\n\n\nSPICE 1000, by comparison, is a substantially heavier weapon intended to provide longer-range precision attack capability with a larger warhead.\n\n\n\nThe SPICE effort is taking place alongside several other Israeli initiatives aimed at extending the F-35I\u2019s range and weapons capabilities.\n\n\n\nThe Pentagon\u2019s F-35 documentation has referenced ongoing work on extended-range fuel tanks and electronic warfare pods for the Israeli Air Force, although it did not provide fielding dates.\n\n\n\nIn May 2026, Israel\u2019s defense ministry awarded an extended-range capability development contract for the F-35I to Elbit Systems subsidiary Cyclone. The capability is intended to increase the aircraft\u2019s radius of action and reduce its reliance on aerial refueling during long-range missions.\n\n\n\nIsrael has also announced a major expansion of its F-35I fleet, with plans to increase the number of aircraft from 50 to 100. The country is simultaneously expanding its forthcoming F-15IA fleet from 25 to 50 aircraft.\n\n\n\nA rendering of the F-15IA for Israel.\u00a0Boeing \n\n\n\nFor the F-35I, SPICE 1000 adds a long-range strike option that pairs the aircraft\u2019s low observability with substantial standoff range and a relatively heavy warhead. This offers a survivability advantage in increasingly contested environments, allowing attacks from farther outside capable air defense systems and under heavy electronic warfare conditions. This factor will only become more important as integrated air defense systems become more capable and the F-35 more detectable.\n\n\n\nExactly how the weapon will be integrated remains undisclosed. Rafael and Lockheed Martin have not announced the final carriage configuration, aircraft software requirements, flight-test schedule, or expected date for operational clearance.\n\n\n\nAt the same time, Rafael is explicitly positioning the effort as a potential pathway for SPICE 1000 to become available to the wider F-35 community. This would conceivably give other operators another option at a time when integrating a new standoff weapon onto the fighter can take years.\n\n\n\nContact the author: thomas@thewarzone.com" ], "output": "readability", "pwd": "/data/archive/1789596210.012255", "schema": "ArchiveResult", "start_ts": "2026-09-17T01:25:38.438950+00:00", "status": "succeeded" } ], "screenshot": [], "singlefile": [], "title": [ { "cmd": [ "curl", "--silent", "--location", "--compressed", "--max-time", "120", "--user-agent", "Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/118.0.0.0 Safari/537.36 ArchiveBox/0.7.4 (+https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox/) curl/curl 8.14.1 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu)", "https://www.twz.com/air/israel-is-bringing-spice-1000-standoff-weapon-to-the-f-35" ], "cmd_version": "curl 8.14.1 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu)", "end_ts": "2026-09-17T01:25:38.431150+00:00", "index_texts": null, "output": "Israel Is Bringing SPICE 1000 Standoff Weapon To The F-35", "pwd": "/data/archive/1789596210.012255", "schema": "ArchiveResult", "start_ts": "2026-09-17T01:25:38.384777+00:00", "status": "succeeded" } ], "wget": [ { "cmd": [ "wget", "--no-verbose", "--adjust-extension", "--convert-links", "--force-directories", "--span-hosts", "--no-parent", "-e", "robots=off", "--reject=js,mjs,woff,woff2,ttf,otf,eot,mp4,m4v,mov,webm,ogv,mkv,avi,flv", "--timeout=120", "--restrict-file-names=windows", "--page-requisites", "--user-agent=Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/118.0.0.0 Safari/537.36 ArchiveBox/0.7.4 (+https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox/) wget/GNU Wget 1.21.3", "--compression=auto", "--timestamping", "https://www.twz.com/air/israel-is-bringing-spice-1000-standoff-weapon-to-the-f-35" ], "cmd_version": "GNU Wget 1.21.3", "end_ts": "2026-09-17T01:25:38.375524+00:00", "index_texts": null, "output": "www.twz.com/air/israel-is-bringing-spice-1000-standoff-weapon-to-the-f-35.html", "pwd": "/data/archive/1789596210.012255", "schema": "ArchiveResult", "start_ts": "2026-09-17T01:25:08.388510+00:00", "status": "succeeded" } ] }, "icons": null, "is_archived": true, "is_static": false, "latest": { "archive_org": null, "dom": null, "favicon": "favicon.ico", "git": null, "media": null, "pdf": null, "screenshot": null, "singlefile": null, "title": "Israel Is Bringing SPICE 1000 Standoff Weapon To The F-35", "warc": null, "wget": "www.twz.com/air/israel-is-bringing-spice-1000-standoff-weapon-to-the-f-35.html" }, "link_dir": "/data/archive/1789596210.012255", "newest_archive_date": "2026-09-17T01:25:40.646203+00:00", "num_failures": 0, "num_outputs": 6, "oldest_archive_date": "2026-09-17T01:25:07.530624+00:00", "path": "/air/israel-is-bringing-spice-1000-standoff-weapon-to-the-f-35", "schema": "Link", "scheme": "https", "snapshot_id": "7ffd8761-df59-47fa-9c95-f0756382c3a9", "sources": [ "/data/sources/1789596209-import.txt" ], "tags": ",pool,war-wiki,escalation", "tags_str": "pool,war-wiki,escalation", "timestamp": "1789596210.012255", "title": "Israel Is Bringing SPICE 1000 Standoff Weapon To The F-35", "updated": "2026-09-17T01:25:07.530434+00:00", "updated_date": "2026-09-17 01:25", "url": "https://www.twz.com/air/israel-is-bringing-spice-1000-standoff-weapon-to-the-f-35" }