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Dubai: India on Monday helped Israel deploy a military satellite that can spy on Iran even at night and through cloud cover and rain.
The launch is believed to have serious political implications for the Middle East, and is indicative of growing strategic cooperation between India and Israel.
The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), played down the tie-up as a commercial one, but its reluctance to officially announce the launch beforehand is said to point to the strategic nature of the lift-off.
Monday's lift-off around 9am from the Sriharikota space centre in the south Indian state of Andhra Pradesh was shrouded in secrecy, and was shorn off the usual live television coverage of ISRO launches.
India has trade relations with Iran and supports it at international forums. New Delhi and Tehran have been negotiating a natural gas pipeline deal to be laid through Pakistan.
Analysts predicted that the satellite launch could have major implications on relations between the two countries.
An ISRO statement later confirmed a textbook launch. Within minutes of the lift-off, the agency's workhorse, Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV), ejected the 300kg TecSAR satellite to the intended orbit, about 550km above the earth at an inclination of 41 degrees to the equator.
The sources said that about 80 minutes after the launch, the Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI), which runs that country's space programme - military and civilian - began receiving signals from the satellite, dubbed Polaris by some reports.
This is the second time that the PSLV has used a core-alone configuration, which means it lifted off without its four strap-on boosters. In April last year, a core-alone rocket deployed the Italian AGILE satellite.
Earlier reports had said ISRO was planning to launch an Indian military payload, CartoSat-2A, along with Polaris. ISRO Chairman G. Madhavan Nair said in September that the space agency would deploy both satellites from one launch vehicle if it was "technically feasible".
But eventually, the agency is believed to have acceded to the IAI's pressure to go alone with Polaris.
Mounting pressure
Israel has a string of other spy satellites, but what marks out Polaris is its advanced radar that can penetrate virtually any weather disturbance even at night to spy on Israel's geopolitical adversaries, including Iran.
Though the launch was on the cards since the successful PSLV-C8 launch that deployed the Italian weather satellite, there were reports of mounting US pressure to abandon the launch. Each time the launch was put off after reportedly being scheduled, the speculation only got stronger. There was also a report that Israel had taken the satellite back to Israel peeved at the kind of publicity it was generating.
Though Israel has a tried and tested satellite launch vehicle in its Shavit rocket, the requirement of an easterly launch made it risky for it to try a lift-off from the Mediterranean coast. In that case, the rocket would have been forced to fly over Syria with grave strategic implications.
The launch success is a major boost to the Indian space agency that has been eyeing the lucrative global market.
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