Israel\'s new spy satellite, the Ofek-5, was not only successfully launched, but is now sending back \"excellent quality\" photographs from space, according to officials at the central command center near Tel Aviv. Although the radio signals it began transmitting after Tuesday\'s launch were a source of satisfaction, the true test was to occur only three days later, this past Friday at 2 PM, when the first pictures were due. The situation seemed grim at first when the initial photos were fuzzy and unclear, but after an hour and a half of tense readjustments and fine-tuning, the quality improved tremendously, and organizers pronounced the launch a success.
The Ofek-5 puts Israel into a league of only three or four other countries with their own high-resolution satellite in space. It can photograph objects as small as a meter from its average height of 450 kilometers, and even higher, and orbits the earth once every 90 minutes. One drawback, however, is that it returns to the same orbit only once every 2-3 days, such that it cannot photograph the same spot more frequently than that. Its designers and handlers plan to use it to detect troop movements and the like in enemy countries, while other engineers are already hard at work on Ofek-6.
The Ofek-5 puts Israel into a league of only three or four other countries with their own high-resolution satellite in space. It can photograph objects as small as a meter from its average height of 450 kilometers, and even higher, and orbits the earth once every 90 minutes. One drawback, however, is that it returns to the same orbit only once every 2-3 days, such that it cannot photograph the same spot more frequently than that. Its designers and handlers plan to use it to detect troop movements and the like in enemy countries, while other engineers are already hard at work on Ofek-6.