Chairman Dov Baharav of Israel Aircraft Industries (IAI) warned the Space Subcommittee of the Knesset Science and Technology Committee, Thursday that "if Israel does not win the Amos 6 [contract], IAI will have to close its GEO satellite production line." He also said that compared to the State of Israel, whic does not invest significantly its space industry, the European Space Agency recently invested 3 billion Euros in the European Union space industry.

Baharav's comments came during a subcommittee tour of the IAI space factory. The military surveillance satellite would replace one lost in a failed launching.