With no advance notice given to public media outlets, the Israeli Defense Ministry launched a Shavit 2 rocket from Palmachim Airbase at 0100 GMT Monday 6 July (9 p.m. EDT Sunday), or at 4 a.m. local time in Israel. Aboard the 3-stage solid-fueled rocket was the Ofek-16 Earth observation satellite which will provide imagery for the Israeli military.

As with all launches from Israel, the rocket lifted off on a more or less east-to-west trajectory, taking it out over the Mediterranean Sea instead of over neighboring countries. This allows Israel to fly payloads to space without dropping rocket stages, failed payloads, and the like onto its neighbors by accident. The downside of this flight path is that the rocket uses more of its energy to counteract the rotational energy of the Earth, which in turn reduces its payload capacity by about half in the process.

The name “Ofek” means “Horizon,” and Ofek 16 is the ninth satellite in the Israeli-built series to fly successfully, but it’s the first to fly since 2016 when Ofek 11 launched from the same airbase. The intervening numbers in the series are not accounted for publicly, leaving the precise reason for the gap up to speculation, which is not surprising for a military reconnaissance satellite program. The Defense Ministry did announce yesterday that they had received the first of the satellite’s high-resolution images at their Yehud control station, indicating that the satellite was functioning as expected. It is supposedly capable of taking images up to fifteen square kilometers at a resolution of 0.5 meters from an altitude of 600 kilometers.

More Information

Jerusalem Post news article 

Israel’s Defense Ministry receives first images from Ofek 16 satellite (Jerusalem Post)

Israel Ministry of Defense press release (Hebrew)

Spaceflight Now article