Israel picks Indian launcher for radar spysat

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http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/181_1544231,0008.htm

ISRO to launch Israel's spy satellite
Press Trust of India
New Delhi, November 12, 2005

Israel has decided to launch its next spy satellite aboard India's
Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) rather than its own indigenous
Shavit rocket, according to a report in Spacenews, a Washington-based
authoritative weekly on global space business.

The report quoting Israeli officials in Tel Aviv said that Israel's
Ministry of Defence and state-owned satellite producer Israel Aircraft
Industries Ltd (IAI) are nearing conclusion with their Indian
counterparts of all political and contractual agreements required for
the planned October 2006 launch of the TechSAR, Israel's first
synthetic aperture radar imaging satellite.

"On the government-to-government level, a pre-existing bilateral accord
on strategic cooperation (between India and Israel) already covers most
aspects of the mission," the report said.

The estimated 260-kilogram TechSAR is slated as the exclusive payload
aboard the PSLV, which will be launched from the Indian Space Research
Organisation's Satish Dhawan Space Center, the report said.

If all agreements are finalised in the coming months, as expected, IAI
will ship the satellite to the Indian launch site by summer, it said.

India and Israel had signed an umbrella agreement for space
collaboration a few months after the visit of Shimon Peres, the then
deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Foreign Affairs of Israel to
ISRO on January 9, 2002.


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For more on TechSAR, see

http://www.isrjournal.com/story.php?F=700606
http://www.isrjournal.com/story.php?F=1138816