Kindgo
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Expert: Israel can now launch missile to any location on earth
By Amnon Barzilai, Ha'aretz Correspondent
The Ofek 5 satellite heading skyward on May 28 at Palmahim.
(Photo: Dudu Bachar / Yedioth )
"From the moment the State of Israel has the capability to launch a satellite into orbit around the earth at a height of hundreds of kilometers, it established [its] capability to launch, by means of a missile, a payload to any location on the face of the earth," says the head of the Asher Institute at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, Prof. Moshe Gelman, in the wake of the launch of the Ofek 5 satellite.
Avi Har-Even, the director-general of the Israel Space Agency (ISA), explained to Ha'aretz that the Ofek 5 launch has two strategic aspects. The first, he says, is the ability to monitor activities in hostile states without violating international treaties. The second involves Israel's launch capabilities.
Since the launch of Ofek 1, Western media have published reports on Israel's ability to send warheads to targets located at a distance of thousands of kilometers. According to foreign reports, the Shavit is an offshoot of the Jericho surface-to-surface missile.
The rocket is manufactured at the Israel Aircraft Industries Malam plant, though its two initial stages (the engines) are manufactured by Israel Military Industries' Givon factory.
In a ceremony to honor employees at Givon following the successful launch of Ofek 5, the managing director of the factory, Natan Wechsler, said that in contrast to what was done with all the rocket's subsystems and telescopic cameras, no preliminary tests were carried out on the rocket's engines due to financial constraints.
Prof. Gelman, who headed the team that developed the Technion's scientific satellite, TechSat, which was sent into space by a Russian rocket, told Ha'aretz that any third-year student in the Aeronautics and Space Faculty could make the calculation to determine the range of a ballistic missile.
To send a satellite into orbit around the earth at a height of more than 400 kilometers, the rocket must reach a certain velocity at which the laws of nature take over, ensuring that it keeps a constant speed. From that point onward, the satellite fixes itself onto a path determined by Kepler's Laws, such as the fixed orbital path of the moon around the earth.
According to Prof. Gelman, there is no difference between the path of a ballistic missile and a rocket used to launch a satellite into orbit. The only difference is the target. A rocket leaves the atmosphere and continues to orbit the earth while a ballistic surface-to-surface missile leaves the atmosphere and returns to earth. The energy required not to return to earth and to continue orbiting the planet is greater than that required to produce a missile that returns to earth.
Prof. Gelman notes that in 1957, when the Russians launched the first satellite, Sputnik 1, into space, the United States was frantic, not because it was lagging behind in the race to conquer space, but because the White House and Pentagon realized the USSR had the ability to launch warheads at any location in America or any point on the face of the planet.
ISA chief Har-Even said the satellite Ofek 1, which was launched in 1988, weighed about 180 kilograms, while the Ofek 5 weighs some 300 kilos. Scientists around the world have been impressed that the Shavit launcher goes into space heading in a westward direction, against the direction of the earth's rotation, which attests to its powerful engines. Har-Even says that capabilities demonstrated by the Shavit when it carried the Ofek 1 remain in effect today, even though it carries a much heavier satellite.
The ISA chief says the U.S. and Russia intend to develop bombs that will travel on satellites in space, and which will be brought down to earth by various control stations. However, Har-Even says, for the time being such weapons belong to the realm of science fiction, and are banned by international conventions. In order to land an orbiting object at a chosen spot on the planet, it must be enveloped in heat resistant materials to prevent it from burning up when it enters the atmosphere.
Several experts have guessed that the "Jericho 2" is basically a missile that combines the Shavit's two stages. NASA scientists estimated after the launching of the Ofek 1 that the Shavit, carrying a nuclear warhead, would have a range of at least 5,300 kilometers, should it be launched as a ballistic missile.
Experts in the Pentagon believe a Shavit can reach a range of 7,200 kilometers when carrying a warhead of unspecified weight. Prof. Steve Fetter, a physicist at the University of Maryland's School of Public Affairs, calculates that a Shavit used as a ballistic missile could convey a 775 kilogram warhead a distance of 4,000 kilometers.
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God bless,
Kindgo
Inside the will of God there is no failure. Outside the will of God there is no success.
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