The Earth Remote Observation System-B (EROS-B) is the second satellite launched in a series of the

EROS In Greek mythology, Eros (, ; grc, Ἔρως, Érōs, Love, Desire) is the Greek god of love and sex. His Roman counterpart was Cupid ("desire").''Larousse Desk Reference Encyclopedia'', The Book People, Haydock, 1995, p. 215. In the ear ...

family of Israeli commercial Earth observation satellites, designed and manufactured by

Israel Aircraft Industries Israel Aerospace Industries (Hebrew: התעשייה האווירית לישראל ''ha-ta'asiya ha-avirit le-yisra'el'') or IAI (תע"א) is Israel's major aerospace and aviation manufacturer, producing aerial and astronautic systems for both mi ...

(IAI). It is owned and operated by ImageSat International N.V. (ISI), in the Netherlands Antilles, Cayman Islands, with offices in

Limassol Limassol (; el, Λεμεσός, Lemesós ; tr, Limasol or ) is a city on the southern coast of Cyprus and capital of the district with the same name. Limassol is the second largest urban area in Cyprus after Nicosia, with an urban population ...

Cyprus Cyprus ; tr, Kıbrıs (), officially the Republic of Cyprus,, , lit: Republic of Cyprus is an island country located south of the Anatolian Peninsula in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. Its continental position is disputed; while it is ge ...

, and in

Tel Aviv Tel Aviv-Yafo ( he, תֵּל־אָבִיב-יָפוֹ, translit=Tēl-ʾĀvīv-Yāfō ; ar, تَلّ أَبِيب – يَافَا, translit=Tall ʾAbīb-Yāfā, links=no), often referred to as just Tel Aviv, is the most populous city in the ...

Israel Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...

. ImageSat International announced that it had begun construction of "EROS B", a day before the launch of "EROS A". According to the plan, the launch of the "EROS B" was to take place in 2001, after which another 6 satellites in the series were planned. In July 2000, the company announced the completion of a capital raising of more than $90 million. A year later, it signed a $70 million credit agreement with Bank Leumi to finance the further development of the satellite series, and announced that the launch of the second satellite had been postponed to 2003. On July 28, 2001, IAI officially signed an agreement with ImageSat International to build the $110 million EROS B satellite. However the project was delayed due to difficulties in signing enough commercial customers to meet the financial costs.

Satellite description

The satellite is 2.3 m in height and 1.2 m in diameter. It weighed 350 kg at launch. The design of the satellite is based on the military reconnaissance satellite Ofeq-3, which was previously built, also by Israel Aerospace Industries for Israeli government use. ImageSat International estimates the satellite will work 14 years.

Control systems

The satellite is equipped with a 3-axis stabilized and a four

reaction wheels A reaction wheel (RW) is used primarily by spacecraft for three-axis attitude control, and does not require rockets or external applicators of torque. They provide a high pointing accuracy, and are particularly useful when the spacecraft must be ...

actuator. The satellite is also equipped with a

star tracker A star tracker is an optical device that measures the positions of stars using photocells or a camera. As the positions of many stars have been measured by astronomers to a high degree of accuracy, a star tracker on a satellite or spacecraft may ...

, horizon sensor,

sun sensor A sun sensor is a navigational instrument used by spacecraft to detect the position of the sun. Sun sensors are used for attitude control, solar array pointing, gyro updating, and fail-safe recovery. In addition to spacecraft, sun sensors fin ...

, gyroscope and magnetometer for altitude determination.

Ground communication systems

The satellite is equipped with an imagery link four times faster than the EROS-A at 280

Mbit/s In telecommunications, data-transfer rate is the average number of bits ( bitrate), characters or symbols ( baudrate), or data blocks per unit time passing through a communication link in a data-transmission system. Common data rate units are mu ...

, a 15 kbit/s maintenance downlink, and a 15 kbit/s command uplink.

Launch

The EROS-B was launched on 25 April 2006, at 16:47:16 UTC from

Svobodny Cosmodrome Svobodny (russian: Свобо́дный) was a Russian rocket launch site located approximately 15 km north of Svobodny, Amur Oblast. The cosmodrome was originally constructed as a launch site for intercontinental ballistic missiles called ...

, Launch Complex-5 in

eastern Siberia Siberia ( ; rus, Сибирь, r=Sibir', p=sʲɪˈbʲirʲ, a=Ru-Сибирь.ogg) is an extensive geographical region, constituting all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has been a part of ...

. 3 days after the launch, ImageSat International announced that the satellite had begun sending images from space.

Mission

The satellite offers an optical resolution of , and as of launch date plans were to use it to monitor the developing of the nuclear program of Iran for potential threats to Israeli security. The satellite is equipped with a

charge-coupled device A charge-coupled device (CCD) is an integrated circuit containing an array of linked, or coupled, capacitors. Under the control of an external circuit, each capacitor can transfer its electric charge to a neighboring capacitor. CCD sensors are a ...

(CDD)

push broom scanner A push broom scanner, also known as an along-track scanner, is a device for obtaining images with spectroscopic sensors. The scanners are regularly used for passive remote sensing from space, and in spectral analysis on production lines, for exampl ...

array, which provides 10,000 pixels per line and a total of 96 lines for selectable Time-Delay Integration (TDI) observation support. The satellite can be operated in both asynchronous and synchronous imaging mode. It has a

Ground sample distance In remote sensing, ground sample distance (GSD) in a digital photo (such as an orthophoto) of the ground from air or space is the distance between pixel centers measured on the ground. For example, in an image with a one-meter GSD, adjacent pixels i ...

(GSD) of 0.70 m panchromatic imagery. Unlike the EROS-A whose primary purpose is to support

agricultural engineers Agricultural engineering, also known as agricultural and biosystems engineering, is the field of study and application of engineering science and designs principles for agriculture purposes, combining the various disciplines of mechanical, civil ...

, the EROS-B is more specifically designed for illegal construction supervision, general infrastructure monitoring, and emergency monitoring such as oil and

gas exploration Hydrocarbon exploration (or oil and gas exploration) is the search by petroleum geologists and geophysicists for deposits of hydrocarbons, particularly petroleum and natural gas, in the Earth using petroleum geology. Exploration methods Vis ...

. EROS-B is the first commercial satellite to offer high spatial resolution images of night-time lights from space. On 27 June 2016, the safety was the topmost concern for the 2016 Olympic and Paralympic Games, Rio 2016, ensuring that the people from every nation will be kept safe was a daunting task. To assist with this matter the Israeli satellite, EROS-B captured high-resolution images of up to 50 cm in an area of 450 km, thus enabling the identification of objects, people, cars, and goods. The announcement was made by Brazilian Defense Minister Raul Jungmann.

References