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Earth Resources Observation Satellite (EROS) is a series of
Israel Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...
i commercial
Earth observation satellite An Earth observation satellite or Earth remote sensing satellite is a satellite used or designed for Earth observation (EO) from orbit, including spy satellites and similar ones intended for non-military uses such as environmental monitoring, me ...
s, designed and manufactured by
Israel Aircraft Industries Israel Aerospace Industries (Hebrew: התעשייה האווירית לישראל ''ha-ta'asiya ha-avirit le-yisra'el'') or IAI (תע"א) is Israel's major aerospace and aviation manufacturer, producing aerial and astronautic systems for both mi ...
(IAI), with optical payload supplied by El-Op. The satellites are owned and operated by ImageSat International N.V. (ISI), a company founded in 1997, as a
Joint venture A joint venture (JV) is a business entity created by two or more parties, generally characterized by shared ownership, shared returns and risks, and shared governance. Companies typically pursue joint ventures for one of four reasons: to acces ...
between IAI, El-Op and Core Software Technology (CST).
EROS A The Earth Remote Observation System-A (EROS-A or EROS-A1) was part of the EROS (satellite), EROS family of Israel Space Agency, Israeli commercial Earth observation satellites, designed and manufactured by Israel Aircraft Industries (IAI). This ...
was launched on December 5, 2000 and
EROS B The Earth Remote Observation System-B (EROS-B) is the second satellite launched in a series of the EROS family of Israeli commercial Earth observation satellites, designed and manufactured by Israel Aircraft Industries (IAI). It is owned and ...
on April 25, 2006. As of November 2017, ImageSat International is controlled by Private-equity fund "FIMI". In July 2021, ImageSat announced a partnership with "e-GEOS", a company owned by the
Italian Space Agency The Italian Space Agency ( it, Agenzia Spaziale Italiana; ASI) is a government agency established in 1988 to fund, regulate and coordinate space exploration activities in Italy. The agency cooperates with numerous national and international entit ...
and
Telespazio Telespazio Spa is a European spaceflight services company founded in 1961. It is a joint venture owned by Leonardo (67%) and Thales Group (33%) headquartered in Rome. Telespazio provides services that include the design and development of space s ...
, to consolidate their assets, including
COSMO-SkyMed COSMO-SkyMed (COnstellation of small Satellites for the Mediterranean basin Observation) is an Earth-observation satellite space-based radar system funded by the Italian Ministry of Research and Ministry of Defence and conducted by the It ...
Satellites, to form one
satellite constellation A satellite constellation is a group of artificial satellites working together as a system. Unlike a single satellite, a constellation can provide permanent global or near-global coverage, such that at any time everywhere on Earth at least one sa ...
.


Program History

The "Eros" satellite project began in the second half of the 1990s, as an of initiative of IAI, with the aim of commercializing the technology of the Ofek series of
reconnaissance satellite A reconnaissance satellite or intelligence satellite (commonly, although unofficially, referred to as a spy satellite) is an Earth observation satellite or communications satellite deployed for military or intelligence applications. The ...
s for the civilian market. A joint venture was established between IAI and the American company Core Software Technology (CST) in
1997 File:1997 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The movie set of ''Titanic'', the highest-grossing movie in history at the time; ''Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone'', is published; Comet Hale-Bopp passes by Earth and becomes one of t ...
, named "West Indies Space" headquartered at
Limassol Limassol (; el, Λεμεσός, Lemesós ; tr, Limasol or ) is a city on the southern coast of Cyprus and capital of the district with the same name. Limassol is the second largest urban area in Cyprus after Nicosia, with an urban population ...
,
Cyprus Cyprus ; tr, Kıbrıs (), officially the Republic of Cyprus,, , lit: Republic of Cyprus is an island country located south of the Anatolian Peninsula in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. Its continental position is disputed; while it is geo ...
, and incorporated in the
Netherlands Antilles nl, In vrijheid verenigd"Unified by freedom" , national_anthem = , common_languages = Dutch English Papiamento , demonym = Netherlands Antillean , capital = Willemstad , year_start = 1954 , year_end = 2010 , date_start = 15 December , ...
. A year later El-Op, the camera maker of Ofek satellites, become a partner and held 12% of the joint venture. The venture competed in the international markets with
Lockheed Martin The Lockheed Martin Corporation is an American aerospace, arms, defense, information security, and technology corporation with worldwide interests. It was formed by the merger of Lockheed Corporation with Martin Marietta in March 1995. It ...
, which at the time was developing the Ikonos satellite, that had similar capabilities. The first satellite "EROS A" was developed in parallel with "Ofeq-4" and was based on it. "West Indies Space" signed an agreement with the Israeli government as its first customer. In March 1999, "West Indies Space" announced that the satellite would be launched in December 1999, using a Russian launcher. It also announced that about $250 million will be raised to launch the first three satellites, including insurance, and launch costs, purtily financed by issuance of bonds in the United States, and after the launch of the first satellite, the company will have an
initial public offering An initial public offering (IPO) or stock launch is a public offering in which shares of a company are sold to institutional investors and usually also to retail (individual) investors. An IPO is typically underwritten by one or more investment ...
of the shares of the venture. In July 1999, the venture completed a $93 million capital raising venture in the United States, changing the name of the joint venture from "West Indies Space" to "ImageSat International". With the entry of a group of investors from Europe and the United States into the venture, IAI reduced its share to 31% and El-Op to 9%. The first satellite was finally launched on December 5, 2000. The launch was carried out aboard the Russian launcher "Start 1" at the launch site of the Svobodny Cosmodrome in Siberia. The Russian launcher was chosen because of its low cost, and it was the conversion of a Soviet ballistic missile. "EROS A" crossed the equator at 10:00 in the morning local time, according to the plan the additional satellites in the series would expand the time dimension, i.e. their crossing times over the equator would range from mid-morning to mid-afternoon, enabling the satellite constellation to provide comprehensive view of a location. Six weeks after the launch, ImageSat International announced that the satellite had begun filming from space. Following the launch of "EROS A", the program planned to market its capabilities to customers around the world, but the first customer announced was the Ministry of Defense of Israel, which paid about $15 million for the exclusive rights to receive all images of Israel's territory and an area within a radius of about 2,000 km. The need for the satellite's capabilities was due to the failure of the launch of the Ofek-4 satellite, two years earlier and the decay of Ofek-3. Other customers of the satellite were the Taiwan Defense Ministry,
India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...
, and media organizations that purchased footage from the battlefield at the start of the
Afghan war War in Afghanistan, Afghan war, or Afghan civil war may refer to: *Conquest of Afghanistan by Alexander the Great (330 BC – 327 BC) *Muslim conquests of Afghanistan (637–709) *Conquest of Afghanistan by the Mongol Empire (13th century), see als ...
, footage that competitor "Space Imaging" (Owner of Ikonos) was banned from selling by the US government. Additionally, a database was established with photographs of the satellite that were sold to companies around the world on demand. ImageSat International announced that it had begun construction of the second satellite in the series, a day before the launch of the first satellite "EROS A". According to the plan, the launch of the "EROS B" was to take place in 2001, after which another 6 satellites in the series were planned. In July 2000, the company announced the completion of a capital raising of more than $90 million. A year later, it signed a $70 million credit agreement with
Bank Leumi Bank Leumi ( he, בנק לאומי, lit. ''National Bank''; ar, بنك لئومي) is an Israeli bank. It was founded on February 27, 1902, in Jaffa as the ''Anglo Palestine Company'' as subsidiary of the Jewish Colonial Trust (Jüdische Kolonia ...
to finance the further development of the satellite series, and announced that the launch of the second satellite had been postponed to 2003. On July 28, 2001, IAI officially signed an agreement with ImageSat International, to build the $110 million EROS B satellite. However the project was delayed due to difficulties in signing enough commercial customers to meet the financial costs. The second satellite in the series was finally launched on April 25, 2006. Due to the failure of Ofek-6 launch, the CEO of ImageSat suggested that the company should take ownership also of the Ofek program.


Legal disputes

Following the launch of "EROS B", Imgesat planned to have an initial public offering on
NASDAQ The Nasdaq Stock Market () (National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations Stock Market) is an American stock exchange based in New York City. It is the most active stock trading venue in the US by volume, and ranked second ...
, at a market value of half a billion dollars, and to raise capital for the further development and launch of "EROS" satellites. However, in July 2007, Israeli and American investors submitted a $6 billion lawsuit against the company, in a Manhattan court alleging that the company refused to provide services to
Venezuela Venezuela (; ), officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela ( es, link=no, República Bolivariana de Venezuela), is a country on the northern coast of South America, consisting of a continental landmass and many islands and islets in th ...
because of the hostile relations of the country's ruler, Hugo Chavez, with Israel and its ties with Iran. According to the plaintiffs, the root of the problem was joint ownership of the venture by private investors and IAI (owned by the State of Israel). According to them, the partial ownership that the state has in the company harmed the chance of profitable contracts, due to political considerations. They claimed that IAI preferred political considerations over economic interests. It was further alleged, that additional contracts were not executed for political reasons, including with:
Angola , national_anthem = " Angola Avante"() , image_map = , map_caption = , capital = Luanda , religion = , religion_year = 2020 , religion_ref = , coordina ...
,
Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...
and
Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the nort ...
. The lawsuit also claimed that the only bans imposed, at the time of the company's establishment, were that it was not allowed to sell satellites images to any country within a radius of up to 1,550 miles from Israel. A year later, the lawsuit was dismissed, but Core Software Technology, one of the minority shareholders in Imagesat, filed a new lawsuit against New York in court. This lawsuit was also dismissed and Morris Talansky, one of the investores, filed a third lawsuit. As part of the lawsuit series, Steve Wilson, the founder of Core Software, which was one of the original initiators of venture, claimed that IAI deceived the other investors in the venture and took it over. In January 1998 the satellite that was supposed to be EROS A was launched as Ofeq-4 and failed. The satellite that was finally launched was in its replacement. In addition, he claimed that EROS B was not built according to the specifications provided by Imgesat, it was delivered three years late, and was in fact a duplicate of "Ofeq-5". Further legal disputes against the company included: a lawsuit by the CEO for bonus payments, allegedly owned to him for sighing a deal with Angola. And an attempt to file a lawsuit against the company in Israel. Additionally, the State Comptroller of Israel also published a critical audit report, in September 2005, about IAI's involvement in the program and losses incurred from it. Among the shortcomings revealed were: that the company's plans for the sale of satellite observation services were partial and unsubstantiated, in terms of the quality of the data and the reasonableness of the assumptions on which they were based on. All this in a market where IAI had no previous experience. And the business plan presented to the board of directors included a key marketing assumption, regarding long-term contracts, which was too optimistic.


Acquisition and IPO

For about ten years, ImageSat International operated with the first two satellites it launched, in a limited way, and not according to the original plan. In November 2017, Private-equity fund "FIMI" paid $40m for 53.6% of ImageSat. At the time it was announced that the company will go ahead with its plan to launch EROS C (first announced in 2006), based on IAIs
OPTSAT-3000 OPTSAT-3000 (OPTical SATellite-3000), or SHALOM (Spaceborne Hyperspectral Applicative Land and Ocean Mission) is an Italian Earth observation and reconnaissance satellite developed and built by Israel Aerospace Industries and operated by the Itali ...
satellite. Later the company announced launching a new development program, for a satellite series called "EROS-NG" (Next Generation). In February 2022, the company had an initial publuc offering (IPO) on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange.


Satellites


EROS A

EROS A was launched on the
Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...
n
Start-1 Start-1 is a Russian satellite launch vehicle based on the RT-2PM Topol, a Soviet Union, Soviet intercontinental ballistic missile developed by Moscow Institute of Thermal Technology. History The Start-1 launch vehicle derives its name from ...
launcher on December 5, 2000, from the Svobodny Launch Complex in eastern
Siberia Siberia ( ; rus, Сибирь, r=Sibir', p=sʲɪˈbʲirʲ, a=Ru-Сибирь.ogg) is an extensive geographical region, constituting all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has been a part of ...
, to a
Low Earth orbit A low Earth orbit (LEO) is an orbit around Earth with a period of 128 minutes or less (making at least 11.25 orbits per day) and an eccentricity less than 0.25. Most of the artificial objects in outer space are in LEO, with an altitude never mor ...
(LEO) altitude of 480 km. The satellite provides commercial images with an
optical resolution Optical resolution describes the ability of an imaging system to resolve detail, in the object that is being imaged. An imaging system may have many individual components, including one or more lenses, and/or recording and display components. ...
of 1.8 meters. The satellite orbits earth in a sun synchronous orbit, so that its imaged target is always in daylight. It always crosses the
equator The equator is a circle of latitude, about in circumference, that divides Earth into the Northern and Southern hemispheres. It is an imaginary line located at 0 degrees latitude, halfway between the North and South poles. The term can als ...
at 9:45am local time. Its dimensions: height: 2.3 m, diameter: 1.2 m, head: 0.7 m. It weighed 250 kg at launch. It was built based on the military
reconnaissance satellite A reconnaissance satellite or intelligence satellite (commonly, although unofficially, referred to as a spy satellite) is an Earth observation satellite or communications satellite deployed for military or intelligence applications. The ...
Ofeq 3, which was previously built, also by IAI and El-Op, for Israeli government use. The EROS-A satellite reentered on 7 July 2016.


EROS B

ImageSat initially planned to launch EROS B a year after EROS A, but the program was delayed, due to commercial difficulties. EROS B was finally launched on April 25, 2006 aboard a Russian Start-1
rocket A rocket (from it, rocchetto, , bobbin/spool) is a vehicle that uses jet propulsion to accelerate without using the surrounding air. A rocket engine produces thrust by reaction to exhaust expelled at high speed. Rocket engines work entirely fr ...
from the Svobodny Launch Complex in eastern Siberia. The satellite offers an
optical resolution Optical resolution describes the ability of an imaging system to resolve detail, in the object that is being imaged. An imaging system may have many individual components, including one or more lenses, and/or recording and display components. ...
of 70 cm (about two feet), and as of launch date plans were to use it to monitor
Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...
's developing nuclear program for potential threats to Israeli security. Originally, a constellation of 4 EROS-B satellites was planned, but the number of satellites was in the end reduced to just one.


EROS C

In January 2006 ImageSat announced that EROS C will be launched in 2009. The launch of EROS C, originally planned for 2009, was postponed several times to 2019 and later cancelled, in favour of developing the EROS NG program.


EROS NG

A satellite constellation comprising a series of 4 very high resolution electro-optical satellites (EROS C1 to C4), two very high resolution synthetic key radar (SAR) satellites ("1 EROSAR" and "2 EROSAR"). The satellites constellation is being developed in collaboration with e-GEOS, a company owned by the
Italian Space Agency The Italian Space Agency ( it, Agenzia Spaziale Italiana; ASI) is a government agency established in 1988 to fund, regulate and coordinate space exploration activities in Italy. The agency cooperates with numerous national and international entit ...
and
Telespazio Telespazio Spa is a European spaceflight services company founded in 1961. It is a joint venture owned by Leonardo (67%) and Thales Group (33%) headquartered in Rome. Telespazio provides services that include the design and development of space s ...
. As of early 2022, according to ImageSat reports, the constellation includes the following satellites: * EROS C1 - An electro-optical satellite with a very very high resolution, active in the service of the company but not owned by it. * EROS C2 - An electro-optical satellite with a very very high resolution, active in the service of the company but not owned by it. * EROS C3 - An electro-optical satellite with a very very high resolution owned by the company, under construction by IAI and based on the
OPTSAT-3000 OPTSAT-3000 (OPTical SATellite-3000), or SHALOM (Spaceborne Hyperspectral Applicative Land and Ocean Mission) is an Italian Earth observation and reconnaissance satellite developed and built by Israel Aerospace Industries and operated by the Itali ...
satellite, launched in late December 2022 using
SpaceX Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) is an American spacecraft manufacturer, launcher, and a satellite communications corporation headquartered in Hawthorne, California. It was founded in 2002 by Elon Musk with the stated goal of ...
Falcon 9 Block 5. * EROS C4 - An electro-optical satellite with a very very high resolution, planned to be launched in 2026 in partnership with another company. * EROSAR 1- A very very high resolution SAR radar satellite, owned by a third party, scheduled for launch during 2022. * EROSAR 2- A very very high resolution SAR radar satellite, owned by a third party, scheduled for launch during 2026.


See also

*
EROS A The Earth Remote Observation System-A (EROS-A or EROS-A1) was part of the EROS (satellite), EROS family of Israel Space Agency, Israeli commercial Earth observation satellites, designed and manufactured by Israel Aircraft Industries (IAI). This ...
*
EROS B The Earth Remote Observation System-B (EROS-B) is the second satellite launched in a series of the EROS family of Israeli commercial Earth observation satellites, designed and manufactured by Israel Aircraft Industries (IAI). It is owned and ...
* Israel Space Agency * Science and technology in Israel


References


External links


Eros A & B pages at ImageSat International's website
{{Rest of the World Reconnaissance Satellites Earth observation satellites of Israel IAI satellites Earth imaging satellites Satellite series Commercial Earth imaging satellites