India puts an Israeli all-weather spy satellite in orbit Monday
DEBKAfile's military sources report that India rushed through its order for the Israeli Aerospace Industries all-weather, 24-hour surveillance TecSAR after 10 gunmen murdered 165 people in Mumbai last November, including five Israelis.
The Israeli satellite is considered one of the most advanced in the market, capable of seeing through clouds and carrying out day-and-night all-weather imaging. It is the first time an acquisition of this nature has gone through within five months of ordering.
The ten gunmen, members of Lashkar-e-Taibe, an operational branch of al Qaeda, landed in Mumbai from the Pakistani port of Karachi after seizing an Indian vessel on the Arabian Sea. Their undetected landing showed New Delhi that even after spending vast sums to make its armed forces one of the finest in the world, a big hole remains in its defenses against terrorists: an all-seeing satellite that could penetrate low visibility weather conditions, especially in the monsoon months during which Indian satellites are blind.
Our counter-terror sources note that al Qaeda tacticians made good use of this weakness last November, once again demonstrating their superior intelligence capabilities and detailed forward planning. Our experts estimate that the Mumbai massacre was nearly two years in the planning.
After it was over, India's military chiefs warned the government that the country was wide open to more such terrorist attacks as well as ballistic missile strikes in the absence of high-quality, all-weather spy satellites.
Dubbed RISAT 2, the 300-kilogram was launched by the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle rocket from the Sriharikota launch site 90 kilometers north of the southern city of Chennai. A scientist from India's Space Research Organization told AFP that it had been placed in orbit 20 minutes after lift-off early Monday, April 20.
The launching of the first Israeli satellite by an Indian rocket took place in January 2008.
