Israel will soon launch the Ofek-5 reconnaissance satellite, media sources reported this week. The $60 million project, developed by Israel Aircraft Industries (IAI), will replace Ofek-3, the spy satellite launched in 1995 that stopped functioning a year and a half ago after five years of service.

The Space News website reported, based on defense and industry sources, that the Ofek-5 would be launched from an airbase in the center of Israel around May 29. A Defense Ministry spokeswoman confirmed the satellite's imminent launch, Ha'aretz reported. The launch is reportedly dependent on weather conditions.

The satellite will be launched on a Shavit rocket, an offshoot of Israel's Jericho surface-to-surface missile. It will orbit the earth at an altitude of some 450 kilometers and complete an orbit every 90 minutes. Advanced optic technologies on Ofek-5, including a telescopic camera developed by El-Op and Elbit Systems, will provide Israel's intelligence agencies high-resolution photographic images, media sources reported. The Ofek-5 satellite is planned to have an eight-year lifespan.

The real test of the satellite depends on the Shavit launcher, Ha'aretz said. The launch of Ofek-4 failed in January 1998, when a fault occurred with the rocket's second stage and the satellite fell into the sea.

Since 1998, Israeli intelligence agencies have been dependent on images provided by a commercial satellite, Eros A1, also developed by IAI and operated by ImageSat.

The Ofek (Horizon) satellite series is part of Israel's defense system against ballistic missiles. "The Ofek-4 failure means there will be a significant gap in the satellite series that was designed to give Israel a surveillance capability independent of the U.S.A.," Jane's Defense Weekly reported in 1998.

Reconnaissance satellites can help intelligence agencies get an up-to-date view of developments in enemy states, including troop movements, the positioning of missiles, expansion of weapon production and the building of nuclear sites, Maariv reported.

Israel's space efforts - maintaining a qualitative edge
Israel's heavy investments in its space program reflect "the importance of maintaining a qualitative edge to offset the Arab advantage in numbers of weapons and troops," Prof. Gerald Steinberg of Bar Ilan University wrote in International Defense Review, October 1995.

Steinberg cited Israel's failure of receiving critical intelligence information, obtained by reconnaissance satellites, at two crucial times when the country came under surprise attack - the 1973 Yom Kippur War, and the 1991 Gulf War. "Israeli military and political leaders were particularly upset by Washington's refusal to provide real-time satellite images to the IDF, even 'when the missiles were falling in Tel Aviv,'" he wrote.

After the war, then-Defense Minister Moshe Arens "explicitly and publicly declared Israel's intention of launching an indigenous reconnaissance satellite.

"The growing threat posed by the fundamentalist regime in Iran has provided an additional motivation behind the Israeli military space program. The IDF has placed a high priority on detailed monitoring of Iranian efforts to obtain chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons, as well as long-range delivery systems (aircraft and ballistic missiles)."

Israel's reliance on reserve forces to augment a relatively small standing army "places a premium on early warning and real-time intelligence," Steinberg concluded.

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