ISRO To Launch Israel's Spy Satellite
Alay Jhaveri
Israel has decided to launch its next spy Satellite aboard India's
Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) rather than its own indigenous
Shavit rocket.
The report quoting Israeli officials in Tel Aviv said that Israel's
Ministry of Defence and state-owned satellite producer Israel Aircraft
Industries Ltd (IAI) are nearing conclusion with their Indian
counterparts of all political and contractual agreements required for
the planned October 2006 launch of the TechSAR, Israel's first
synthetic aperture radar imaging satellite.
"On the government-to-government level, a pre-existing bilateral accord
on strategic cooperation (between India and Israel) already covers most
aspects of the mission," the report said. The estimated 260-kilogram
TechSAR is slated as the exclusive payload aboard the PSLV, which will
be launched from the Indian Space Research Organisation's Satish Dhawan
Space Center, the report said.
If all agreements are finalised in the coming months, as expected, IAI
will ship the satellite to the Indian launch site by summer, it said.
India and Israel had signed an umbrella agreement for space
collaboration a few months after the visit of Shimon Peres, the then
deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Foreign Affairs of Israel to
ISRO on January 9, 2002.
Under a separate agreement signed on December 25, 2003, ISRO is
expected to launch Israel's "TAUVEX" telescope that will image the sky
in the Ultra-Violet (UV) spectrum. The date for this launch is not
fixed yet.
The proposed launch of spy satellite is the second contract for ISRO
from Israel. According to the report the PSLV launch cost was estimated
"at no more than $15 million."
Alay Pankaj Jhaveri, Astronomer
B-23,Satellite Apartments,Jodhpur Road,Ahmedabad-380015,Gujarat,India.
Tel: 91-79-50040855, 91-9376110855