Espionage capabilities to planned Israeli satellite

Espionage capabilities to planned Israeli satellite

אילוסטרציה: וויקימדיה

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illustration: wikipedia
illustration: wikipedia

Israeli high-resolution satellite imagery provider, ImageSat International, suggested its long-delayed Eros-C satellite, now under construction at parent company Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI), will equal the image sharpness of DigitalGlobe’s current 30-centimeter product.

According to Space News Rani Hellerman, ImageSat’s vice president for business development, said that while most military user requirements can be satisfied with a 70-centimeter-resolution satellite such as ImageSat’s current Eros-B, the market is inexorably moving toward ever-higher-resolution imagery. Hellerman declined to disclose the precise resolution of Eros-C, but said it “will be better than 50 centimeters, and as sharp as anything on the market now.”

ImageSat operates two satellites. Eros-A, launched in December 2000 and nearing the end of its life, produces 1.2-meter-resolution imagery with an image swath width of 15 kilometers. Eros-B, launched in April 2006, offers a 70-centimeter image when looking straight down and a 7-kilometer swath width. Eros-B, the company’s workhorse, operates at 510 kilometers in altitude and is expected to remain in service until 2022, Hellerman said.

IAI is under a $182 million contract, signed in July 2012, to build the 400-kilogram Optsat 3000 satellite for the Italian Defense Ministry. The satellite is scheduled for launch in 2016 aboard a European Vega rocket.

Without saying so directly, Hellerman suggested that Eros-C, whose launch date is unclear but not before 2017, will be a near-twin of Optsat 3000. He also said it would have a 10-kilometer swath width.

Brazil’s space agency has said the availability of high-resolution imagery on the commercial market is such that owning your own high-resolution spacecraft is not a necessary to maintain surveillance of illegal trafficking and border control.

ImageSat’s latest product is an Eros-B Mini-Terminal, a 1.5-meter-diameter mobile image-reception station that can be deployed in less than an hour.