This is a 260 kg satellite that will be placed as an exclusive payload on the launcher, which will be launched from the Satish Dhawan Space Research Center.
Israel has decided to launch its next spy satellite using India's Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) and not to rely on the home-made Comet launcher. This is according to a report in the journal SpaceNews, a weekly about the space industry, published in Washington and also quoted in a report given by an agency The news of India Hindustan.
The report cites senior officials in Israel's Ministry of Defense and the Aerospace Industry as saying that they are about to sign with their Indian counterparts a cooperation document and contract necessary for planning the launch of the TechSAR satellite, which carries an imaging radar. The agency notes that there has been security cooperation between the two countries for some time, under which most aspects of the mission can be carried out.
This is a 260 kg satellite that will be placed as an exclusive payload on the launcher, which will be launched from the Satish Dhawan Space Research Center. If all the contractual documents are signed on time, IAI should move the satellite to the launch site in the summer of 2006.
In January 2002 Shimon Peres visited India, and as part of his visit he also came to ISRO - the Indian Space Agency. In a separate agreement, signed on December 25, 2003 by the then Minister of Science, Moody Zandberg, it was decided that the Indians would launch the Tawax space telescope, which photographs the sky in the ultraviolet range. The launch date has not yet been set. It is estimated that the cost of launching the spy satellite using PSLV will cost no more than 15 million dollars.
As recalled, since the crash of the Ofek 6 satellite due to the failure of one of the engines of the last stage, Israel has lacked the services of photography satellites, when in addition to the Ofek 5 which is still active, it uses the civil satellite Eros-1.
