NEW DELHI: Iran is angry with India for launching an Israeli spy satellite a few weeks ago.
"We hope wise and independent countries like India do not provide space and technologies to countries which are undertaking spying operations on friendly countries like Iran," the Iranian ambassador to India, Sayed Mehdi Nabizadeh, said here on Tuesday.
The envoy said Iran had not issued a formal protest to India but "our officials have conveyed our concern". India has said it was a commercial venture, but Nabizadeh said "such issues should be looked at politically". The envoy added that Iran’s relations with India were strong.
India launched the Israeli TecSar satellite on January 21, marking two significant developments — India’s coming of age as a commercial satellite launching service with tremendous market potential and a big increase in Israeli space-surveillance capability.
There is an irony to the protest by the Iranian ambassador. The satellite launch was originally slated for September 2007 but had been delayed by four months.
Stratfor, the international intelligence website, reported that the satellite was actually removed from the launch pad and into storage. According to Israeli media, this was the result of Iranians lobbying with communist and Muslim political parties, who are part of the UPA government here. It was Iranian "sabotage", they called it.
http://www.defensenews.com/story.php?F=3343305&C=asiapac
Israel Tests 1st Radar-Imagery Satellite
By BARBARA OPALL-ROME
TEL AVIV, Israel — Israeli defense and industry leaders anxiously are awaiting the planned operational certification of TecSAR, the nation’s first radar imaging satellite, which was inserted into orbit Jan. 21 by an Indian Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle.
By Feb. 3, sources here say, initial streams of TecSAR-generated synthetic aperture radar imagery are expected to reach the government’s secure ground station on the campus of Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI), builder of the 300-kilogram satellite and its multi-mode payload.
TecSAR’s launch from the Sriharikota site on the Bay of Bengal in southeast India was executed under a commercial contract between IAI and Antrix, the commercial arm of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO).
In a statement following the early morning launch, Antrix Executive Director K.R. Sridharamurthy said the satellite was successfully placed into its intended orbit 19 minutes after liftoff. TecSAR is in an orbit with a 41-degree inclination relative to the equator. The perigee, or point closest to Earth, is 450 kilometers and the apogee, or most distant point, is 580 kilometers.
“This satellite can operate in any inclination and at a wide range of altitudes,” said Yossi Weiss, general manager of IAI’s Systems, Missiles and Space Group.
TechSar bounces radar signals off the Earth’s surface and objects sitting on it, then gathers up the returns with mesh antenna panels. Aside from IAI-subsidiary Elta Systems, which built the 100-kilogram radar payload, program subcontractors include Tadiran Spectralink, which provided the satellite’s high-speed data link; and Rafael Advanced Defense Systems, which supplied hydrazine thrusters and other propulsion components.
Once initial imagery is analyzed and the satellite’s various operational modes are determined to meet user requirements, the TecSAR will be declared operational, sources here said. Until then, IAI and Ministry of Defense technicians are proceeding through an extensive initialization and calibration testing regime that began about an hour after launch with the first receipt of the satellite’s signals.
“By all indications so far, the satellite is functioning properly,” IAI announced Jan. 21.
In interviews here, defense officials said TecSAR promises a qualitative upgrade in strategic intelligence, not only because of its 24-hour, all-weather capability, but also due to its ability to cover selected areas for extended periods during each orbital pass. Program officials said TecSAR features a unique combination of in-orbit agility and electronically steered beams that allow operators to capture more images per orbit over a wider area than less-capable spacecraft.
Agility is provided by high-powered yet low-weight reaction wheels that allow the satellite to alter its attitude as it travels some 7.5 kilometers per second. In parallel, electronic switching of the radar beam allows operators to look back at critical target areas and use multiple modes of image collection, thereby maximizing every second of the typical 8.5-minute pass over a given area.
Three Imagery Modes
During a tour of IAI’s TechSAR testing chamber last May, just prior to the satellite’s delivery to India’s Sriharikota space complex, Weiss said the payload is designed to collect imagery in three distinct operating modes: spot mode for collecting a large number of high-resolution images per orbit; strip mode for capturing many hundreds of medium-resolution imaging swaths; and beam-scanning mosaic mode for very wide-area coverage at lower resolutions.
Weiss said security classifications precluded him from discussing specific imaging resolutions or coverage areas.
“During a single pass, due to extraordinary flexibility of the beam and the agility of the satellite itself, TecSAR can capture widely spread targets at the same time,” Weiss said.
Another Israeli space official, in an interview last May, estimated TecSAR’s footprint, or coverage area at any given time, at more than 500 square kilometers in mosaic mode.
“If a normal satellite provides a 25-kilometer footprint, you can multiply by 20 or even 30 to get the coverage provided by TecSAR in mosaic mode,” he said. “By activating the reaction wheels, it makes a backscan that allows it to linger more time in a certain area.”
The official attributed TechSAR’s added value to “this unique combination of electronic switching of the beam and the mechanical agility of the satellite that allows us to achieve a phenomenal capability for high-resolution imaging over very large areas.”
Security experts say TechSAR will provide more revisit time for monitoring missile launching sites, seaport activities, arms production facilities, troop movements and other militarily significant sites in the region. Like Israel’s IAI-produced Ofeq-series and Eros-series optical satellites, TechSar circles the Earth every 90 minutes. However, unlike optical satellites, radar spacecraft are unaffected by darkness or inclement weather.
“If some countries or terror organizations are trying to hide things or move things under the cover of darkness or heavy clouds, this new satellite will deny them that capability,” said Yuval Steinitz, a veteran member of the Israeli parliament’s defense and foreign affairs committee.
Tal Inbar, head of the Space Research Center at Israel’s Fisher Institute for Air and Space Studies, said the addition of TecSAR to the nation’s remote sensing constellation provides a significant boost in strategic intelligence capabilities.
“Combined with Ofeq-5, Ofeq-7, Eros A and Eros B, we can get to a much shorter revisit time at different altitudes and inclinations. Obviously, this is critically important, given the strategic threats we face from Iran, Syria and other places in the region,” Inbar said.
