International Christian Embassy Jerusalem, May 29, 2002

Israel successfully launched on Tuesday its upgraded Ofek-5 spy satellite, allowing it to keep better tabs on threats from Iran, Iraq, Syria and other regional foes.

The homegrown satellite lifted from Israeli soil, for the first time, aboard an equally homegrown Shavit rocket - a civilian version of Israel's Jericho II ballistic missile. In an unusual move, the rocket was launched westward against the Earth's orbit so that if it failed, the sensitive technology would not fall inside an Arab country.

Officials at Israel Aircraft Industries said the launch was successful in getting the 300-kilo satellite into orbit, but they will not know until Friday whether its photographing capabilities are functioning. Moving in an ellipse spanning from 370 km to 600 km above Earth, the satellite orbits once every 90 minutes. The high-resolution camera and other satellite components were all built by Israel Aircraft Industries and other Israeli companies.

The Ofek-5 fills a void left when the Ofek-4 failed to obtain orbit in 1998 in order to replace the Ofek-3, which was then called into service longer than expected but went off line more than a year ago. Israel has been buying satellite imagery elsewhere ever since, but now hopes to restore its independent intelligence capabilities to locate long-distance ballistic missile threats (including non-conventional threats) from Iran, Iraq, Syria and Libya. In addition, Egypt and Saudi Arabia have reportedly been acquiring and deploying enhanced missile capabilities.