‘Israel’ launches another satellite to spy on other countries
Occupied Palestine (QNN)- The occupation state on Monday launched another spy satellite that it said would provide high-quality surveillance over other countries.
In a statement on Monday, the Israeli ministry of war and ‘Israel’ Aerospace Industries said “Ofek 16” was shot into space at 4am local time [01:00 GMT].
The “electro-optical reconnaissance satellite with advanced capabilities … will undergo a series of tests,” it added.
There were no further details on the satellite’s mission, but Israeli public radio claimed it would be used to monitor the nuclear activities of regional rival Iran.
‘Israel’, as a rule, does not confirm the number of its operational satellites but Amnon Harari, the head of the ministry’s Space and Satellite Administration, mentioned at least two others, the Ofek 5, launched in 2002, and the Ofek 11, launched in 2016. He said that having additional spy satellites improved the speed and depth at which Israel can gather intelligence.
“All the group of satellites are being used to monitor any threats on the state of Israel, which as you know are sometimes far away and immediate so they require constant monitoring,” he said. “You can assume that once you have more than one satellite in parallel in the sky, you achieve better visit times over the targets of interest.”
The occupation state launched its first spy satellite “Ofek1” in 1988. In 1990 it launched “Ofek2”, then in 1995 it launched “Ofek3” but it failed to launch “Ofek4”, which pushed it to launch “EROS-A”.
In 2002, ‘Israel’ launched “Ofek5” then it launched “EROS-B” in 2006. In 2007, “Ofek 7” was successfully launched before launching “tecSAR” in 2008.
Other known satellites, that have been orbiting the planet, are Amos-3, Amos-1, and Amos-2.
