Status
Success
Ofek-1
Mon Sep 19, 1988 09:31 UTC
First flight of Shavit. Israel becomes the world's 8th space power.
Rocket
Mission Details
Ofek-1
Ofek 1 is the first Israeli satellite sent into space. Thanks to the success of the mission, Israel became the 8th nation to launch its own satellite.
Weighing 155 kg, it is launched by a Shavit launcher and placed in an elliptical orbit with a perigee of 249 km and a peak of 1,149 km.
4 objectives were set for this mission: the experimentation of the generation of solar energy, radio transmission tests, verification of the ability of the system to withstand weightless conditions, and the collection of data on the space environment and the Earth's magnetic field.
Scheduled for a lifetime of a few weeks, it did not enter the atmosphere until January 14, 1989, almost four months after its launch.