Inside Israel’s Space Power: Satellites, Services, and the Secret Strength of the Israel Space Agency
On September 19, 1988, Ofek-1 became Israel’s first indigenous satellite, making Israel the eighth nation to orbit its own spacecraft. The Israel Space Agency (ISA) was established in 1983 under physicist Yuval Ne’eman to oversee Israel’s civilian space activities. The Shavit launch vehicle is a 20-meter-tall, three-stage solid-fuel rocket that can loft about 380 kg to a low Earth orbit when launching westward from Palmachim. The VENμS environmental satellite, launched in 2017 and operated through 2023, is a ~265 kg microsatellite built by Israel Aerospace Industries with France’s CNES to monitor vegetation and environmental parameters. AMOS-1, Israel’s first commercial telecom
