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Support Grows for Israeli Air-Launch Options
By BARBARA OPALL-ROME, HERZLIYA, Israel
February 06, 2006
In what could be another blow to the Shavit space launch program, Israel’s top Air Force official has pledged to seriously evaluate an alternative method of using aircraft rather than ground-based rockets to deploy small, expensive satellites in space.
Maj. Gen. Eliezer Shkedy, Israel Air Force commander, identified the so-called launch-on-demand concept — by which a constellation of micro-satellites can be deployed at very short notice by F-15 fighters or transport aircraft — as a potentially cost-effective response to military requirements, particularly in times of conflict.
The air-launch option, along with more traditional, ground-launch means of advancing Israeli space ambitions, will be examined in a comprehensive review of military space priorities that his service plans to spearhead in the coming months, in conjunction with the Ministry of Defense (MoD), local industry and other government organizations.

“We’re not even close to determining the basic elements of building and managing a space force structure. … I don’t think we’ve achieved the proper balance in terms of cost-effectiveness of launchers, platforms and payloads,” Shkedy told government and industry leaders at the Fisher Center for Strategic Air and Space Studies here Jan. 31. “I intend to define requirements, and then we need to put it on the table in a courageous way so that the entire defense establishment works together in an organized and comprehensive manner to realize our goals.”
While MoD technology planners have supported limited industrial research and experimentation of the air-launch concept, Shkedy’s commitment to consider it a concrete military requirement could affect Israel’s future space arsenal.
“Instead of spending tens of millions of dollars to launch a $100 million satellite from the center of Israel, we may be able to use existing air assets to insert $10 million to $15 million satellites into low Earth orbit from Nachson,” retired Col. Yoram Ilan-Lipovsky, director of the Fisher Institute’s Space & UAV Center, said in reference to the service’s new fleet of G-550 special mission aircraft. “We’re very supportive of studying the feasibility of the airborne launch on demand concept to see if it can offer a solution to future requirements.”
Nehemia Miller, director of the Space Systems Directorate at Rafael, said his firm has been experimenting with the air-launch concept for nearly five years as a means of deploying to space satellites weighing less than 100 kilograms. Using the F-15-launched Black Sparrow ballistic missile target as a baseline, Rafael has amassed significant data pertaining to thrust and employment methods needed to loft very small satellites into low Earth orbit.
“We’re still in the very early phases of analysis and conceptual design, but initial results are encouraging,” Miller said. “The launch-on-demand concept envisions the ability to deploy, within a matter of days, a constellation of very advanced-technology, inter-linked micro-satellites whose sum contribution, when deployed as a team, is far greater than its individual parts.”
To this end, Rafael and Israel Aircraft Industries (IAI) have established a joint company, called MicroSat Ltd., to provide such capabilities for military and commercial users worldwide.
Like Rafael, IAI’s Missile Systems and Space Group also has experimented with a variety of airborne launch concepts, including an internally carried satellite launcher that is dropped from a C-130 transport.

Squeezing Out Shavit?
Growing support for the airborne launch-on-demand option coincides with heightened concerns about the reliability of the Shavit, Israel’s indigenous ground-based launcher, which has had repeated failures over the past decade. The latest failure, in September 2004, resulted in the loss of the MoD’s estimated $100 million Ofeq-6 spy satellite and influenced an MoD decision late last year to use an Indian rocket instead of Shavit for the planned October launch of its newest TechSAR radar satellite.
And while government and industry officials insist Israel will continue to invest in upgraded versions of Shavit for future satellite launches and deterrent purposes, it is no longer the primary delivery vehicle for Israeli spacecraft. Of the seven Israeli satellites now in varying stages of development or production at IAI’s MBT Division, only two — the Ofeq-7 and Ofeq-8 military intelligence spacecraft — are slated for launch by the Shavit.
The next Israeli satellite up for launch this spring is the dual-use Eros-B, a high-resolution remote-sensing system based on Israel’s Ofeq series of spy satellites. Like its Eros-A predecessor launched in December 2000, ImageSat International will use a Russian Start-1 rocket to launch Eros-B. The follow-on Eros-C satellite, now in development at IAI, most likely will make use of a Russian launcher, company sources said.
As for Israel’s series of Amos communications satellites, which are about three times heavier than the Ofeq, Eros and TechSAR satellites and must be placed in geostationary rather than low Earth orbit, the Shavit has never been an option. Although Israel’s MoD plans to improve the lift capacity of the Shavit through added thrust, inherent design and operational constraints exclude its use as a delivery vehicle for heavier, geosynchronous satellites like the upcoming Amos-3 or the new military communications satellite planned for launch by the end of the decade.
When asked if launch-on-demand airborne alternatives would reduce even further the need for the Shavit, MoD spokeswoman Rachel Naidek-Ashkenazi said, “Our policy is to preserve a sovereign independent launch capability, specific details of which will depend on operational requirements.”