By Tamir Eshel, Defense Update:
The Israeli Ministery of Defense (IMOD) OFEK program (Horizon in Hebrew, often referred to as OFEQ) will be awarded the prestigious ‘Israel’s Defense Prize for 2022? for the group’s achievements that jointly developed, produced, and deployed Israel’s most advanced observation satellite – OFEK-16. The award will be given in a ceremony to be held on 14 June at the residence of the President of Israel, Mr. Itzhak Herzog. The program is led by the Space directorate at the Directorate of Defense Research & Development (DDR&D) of the Israeli Defense Ministry (IMOD), with IAI as the prime contractor and Elbit Systems as the payload provider.
Israel’s most advanced electro-optical observation satellite, OFEK-16, was launched into space on 6 July 2020, equipped with a new, high-performance space camera developed and manufactured by Elbit Systems. In August 2020, the IMOD released the first high-resolution images from the satellite, showing the Tadmor world heritage site in Syria. On this occasion, IMOD also unveiled the national infrastructure for the production of space cameras, a joint project of the IMOD and Elbit Systems. The national infrastructure includes laboratories for the production of advanced space-qualified optical instruments and a vacuum chamber that simulates the conditions in space and is used to test the satellite camera before it is launched for its mission in space.
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