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- Israel has achieved the ability to produce intercontinental
ballistic missiles.
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- Israeli officials and experts said the nation's ICBM
capability was demonstrated by its launch in May of the Ofeq-5 satellite
into space orbit. The satellite was carried by a Shavit-class booster.
The Shavit booster was launched westward against the earth's orbit, officials
said. The direction was decided to prevent the Ofeq from falling into enemy
hands if it failed in an eastward launch.
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- "The minute Israel can launch a satellite into orbit
around the earth to an altitude of hundreds of kilometers, it established
the capability to launch, by means of a missile, a payload to any location
on earth," Moshe Gelman, a leading Israeli space expert at the Technion-Israel
Institute of Technology, said on Wednesday. "We are talking about
the laws of physics."
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- Gelman said the path of a satellite booster is the same
as that of a ballistic missile. The difference is the target - with a booster
requiring greater energy to ensure that it does not fall to earth with
the satellite.
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- In 1998, Israel failed to place its Ofeq-4 satellite
into orbit. The failure was attributed to the Shavit launcher.
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- Officials said the state-owned Israel Aircraft Industries,
which builds the Shavit, introduced changes in the booster for the latest
launch. They said the changes were said to have focused on the rocket engines
meant for the first two stages of the Shavit. The engines are produced
by the state-owned Israel Military Industries.
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- Israel's ICBM capabilities were first said to have been
demonstrated in 1988 when the Ofeq-1 was shot into orbit. Ofeq-1 had a
payload of about 180 kilograms (400 pounds). The Ofek 5 weighs about 300
kilograms (660 pounds).
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- The Shavit is said to be a derivative of the Jericho
surface-to-surface missile. The Jericho is believed to have been last tested
in the Mediterranean two years ago.
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- U.S. officials have determined that the Shavit has a
range of 7,200 kilometers (4,464 miles), the Israeli Ha'aretz daily said.
The newspaper quoted Professor Steve Fetter, a physicist at the University
of Maryland, that the Shavit could deliver a 775 kilogram warhead a distance
of 4,000 kilometers (2,480 miles).
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- Israel's Jericho missile silo is said to be located outside
Bet Shemesh, about 25 kilometers (16 miles) southwest of Jerusalem. The
London-based Foreign Report asserted that a six-man Palestinian insurgency
cell captured on Monday had attempted to blow up the missile facility.
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- http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=28169
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