Satellites will be provided to Azerbaijan by Israel Aerospace Industries

 

According to Haaretz, Israel Aerospace Industries has been chosen to provide Azerbaijan with two satellites for $120 million.

In an interview with Times of Israel, Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen, who just visited Baku, acknowledged that Azerbaijan "chose an Israeli company in a satellite procurement deal."

Two communications satellites and one observation satellite are used by Azerbaijan. One year before the observation satellite was supposed to finish its mission, Azercosmos, the country's space agency, revealed last week that it had lost contact with the satellite.

The issue, according to Azercosmos, was caused by a meteorite or space debris damaging the spacecraft. The agency and the satellite's maker, Airbus, tried to reestablish communication, but they were unable.

The agency announced that the Azersky observation satellite's mission was complete after nine years. "The satellite transmitted more than 80,000 images in a volume of half a petabyte while it was in orbit."

According to the space agency, it has also begun work on "a new, higher-resolution observation satellite project, which responds to the challenges of modern technological development in accordance with the wishes of local institutions." This could be the context for the satellite agreement being negotiated with IAI.

Since the 1980s, IAI has operated in the satellite industry. Since putting Ofek 1 into orbit in 1988, it has been in charge of creating launchers and satellites for the whole Ofek family of spy satellites, which are equipped with cutting-edge reconnaissance sensors. The most recent, Ofek 13, went live in March. For the company ImageSat International, it launched EROS-C3, the biggest intelligence satellite it had ever built, a year ago.

The corporation was in charge of creating a portion of the Amos family of communication satellites, among other research and communication satellites as well as satellite ground stations.

The Mini Communications Satellite and the OptSAR-550 microsatellite, which have optical and SAR (synthetic aperture radar) payloads, respectively, can take pictures of the earth's surface at night and when there is a thick layer of clouds. IAI unveiled these two new models last year.