The Air Force of the Iranian Army has displayed a launch pad for two Raad-500 missiles at the Holy Defence Week exhibition in Tehran.
Iran’s Air Force said “the missile is powered by solid fuel, and manufactured locally with advanced technologies. It uses carbon fibers in its cover and the new Zuhair engine with a structure of non-metallic composite materials.”
The statement explained that “The use of carbon fibers in the cover of Thunder-500 reduces the pressure and vibration caused by the first moments of the launch, and that it withstands pressure of 100 units of atmosphere, and a temperature of 3,000 degrees Celsius.”
The IRGC said, “This contributes to limiting the radars’ ability to detect it, which makes it able to bypass missile defense systems easily. The other advantage of using carbon fibers is to reduce the weight of the missile and give it a faster speed, and thus increase its range. And compared to the Fateh-110 missile, which used the metallic shell, the Raad-500 weighs half the weight of the Fateh-110 missile. Its range increased from 200 km to 500 km,” it concluded