Israel’s F-35 jets are getting a new precision weapon

Rafael Advanced Defense Systems is integrating its SPICE 1000 precision-guided munition onto the F-35 Adir fighter jet for the first time, the Israeli company announced Sept. 15, 2026, at the AFA Air, Space & Cyber conference.

The work is being carried out jointly with Lockheed Martin at Lockheed’s facilities in the United States.

SPICE 1000 is a 453 kg (1,000-pound) class guidance kit that converts standard bombs into precision, stand-off weapons capable of hitting fixed and high-value targets from more than 120 km (75 miles) away. It uses an electro-optical seeker paired with scene-matching algorithms, letting it lock onto a target by comparing what it sees to stored imagery rather than relying solely on GPS, a feature designed to keep the weapon accurate even in environments where satellite navigation is jammed or unavailable.

The Israeli Air Force has flown SPICE 1000 for years, primarily on its F-15 and F-16 fleets, and the weapon has been a mainstay of the service’s long-range strike missions. Rafael and Lockheed Martin first signed an agreement to jointly market SPICE kits internationally in 2018, and the two companies have said publicly for several years that F-35 integration was on their roadmap. This week’s announcement marks the point where that integration work has moved forward on the F-35 platform specifically.

SPICE is manufactured in three weight classes: SPICE 1000, SPICE 2000, and the smaller SPICE 250, all sharing a stand-off range of up to 120 km. The family has been sold to multiple air forces beyond Israel and has been integrated on other fighter types, including the Saab Gripen. Rafael has said the SPICE program has won Israel’s Defense Prize.

Because the F-35’s internal weapons bays are limited in size and shape, integrating an existing munition onto the jet typically requires software, wiring and structural work to confirm the weapon fits, communicates with the aircraft’s systems and can be released safely, a process distinct from simply mounting a bomb onto an external pylon.

Neither company disclosed a timeline for completing that work on SPICE 1000, nor did they specify whether the integration covers internal carriage, external carriage, or both.