ELOP Electro Optical Industries is well known for its work on small spaceborne real-time high resolution cameras.
It is small for a very good reason. Eytan Reis, ELOP's marketing and business development manager explains: "Any satellite launched from Israel has to be launched to the west, not the east, for obvious geographical reasons.
"This means we can't take advantage of the earth's spin and need to make our payloads as light as possible."
ELOP was responsible for developing the electro-optic earth imaging camera for the OFEQ-3 satellite which was launched in 1995. Its trouble-free performance record and imagery has meant that many clients have come to ELOP for help.
The company produces equipment for the TAUVEX astronomical ultra-violet telescope on the Russian Spectrum-X-Gamma satellite platform and this scientific knowhow is being transferred to the EROS constellation of eight small lightweight satellites to be launched in the next few years.
Currently in final assembly stage, the first satellite will orbit the earth at low altitudes of 480 to 600km. The EROS system will enable the mapping of entire countries, but Reis knows what the main use may be in this region.
"People will tell you that high resolution satellite imagery will be used to study environmental and ecological conditions, or allow farmers to monitor the health of their crops, but we all know that is nonsense.
Source: Flight Daily News