The "Eros" satellite project began in the second half of the 1990s, as an of initiative of IAI, with the aim of commercializing the technology of the
Ofek series of
reconnaissance satellites for the civilian market. A joint venture was established between IAI and the American company Core Software Technology (CST) in 1997, named "West Indies Space" headquartered at
Limassol,
Cyprus, and incorporated in the
Netherlands Antilles. A year later
El-Op, the camera maker of Ofek satellites, become a partner and held 12% of the joint venture. The venture competed in the international markets with
Lockheed Martin, which at the time was developing the
Ikonos satellite, that had similar capabilities. The first satellite "EROS A" was developed in parallel with "Ofeq-4" and was based on it. "West Indies Space" signed an agreement with the Israeli government as its first customer. In March 1999, "West Indies Space" announced that the satellite would be launched in December 1999, using a Russian launcher. It also announced that about $250 million will be raised to launch the first three satellites, including insurance, and launch costs, purtily financed by issuance of bonds in the United States, and after the launch of the first satellite, the company will have an
initial public offering of the shares of the venture. The first satellite was finally launched on December 5, 2000. The launch was carried out aboard the Russian launcher "Start 1" at the launch site of the Svobodny Cosmodrome in Siberia. The Russian launcher was chosen because of its low cost, and it was the conversion of a Soviet ballistic missile. "EROS A" crossed the equator at 10:00 in the morning local time, according to the plan the additional satellites in the series would expand the time dimension, i.e. their crossing times over the equator would range from mid-morning to mid-afternoon, enabling the satellite constellation to provide comprehensive view of a location. Six weeks after the launch, ImageSat International announced that the satellite had begun filming from space. Following the launch of "EROS A", the program planned to market its capabilities to customers around the world, but the first customer announced was the
Ministry of Defense of Israel, which paid about $15 million for the exclusive rights to receive all images of Israel's territory and an area within a radius of about 2,000 km. The need for the satellite's capabilities was due to the failure of the launch of the Ofek-4 satellite, two years earlier and the decay of Ofek-3. Other customers of the satellite were the
Taiwan Defense Ministry, India, and media organizations that purchased footage from the battlefield at the start of the
Afghan war, footage that competitor "Space Imaging" (Owner of Ikonos) was banned from selling by the US government. Additionally, a database was established with photographs of the satellite that were sold to companies around the world on demand. 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. The second satellite in the series was finally launched on April 25, 2006. Due to the failure of Ofek-6 launch, the CEO of ImageSat suggested that the company should take ownership also of the Ofek program.
Legal disputes Following the launch of "EROS B", Imgesat planned to have an initial public offering on
NASDAQ, at a market value of half a billion dollars, and to raise capital for the further development and launch of "EROS" satellites. However, in July 2007, Israeli and American investors submitted a $6 billion lawsuit against the company, in a Manhattan court alleging that the company refused to provide services to
Venezuela because of the hostile relations of the country's ruler,
Hugo Chavez, with Israel and its ties with Iran. According to the plaintiffs, the root of the problem was joint ownership of the venture by private investors and IAI (owned by the State of Israel). According to them, the partial ownership that the state has in the company harmed the chance of profitable contracts, due to political considerations. They claimed that IAI preferred political considerations over economic interests. It was further alleged, that additional contracts were not executed for political reasons, including with:
Angola, Russia and
Taiwan. The lawsuit also claimed that the only bans imposed, at the time of the company's establishment, were that it was not allowed to sell satellites images to any country within a radius of up to 1,550 miles from Israel. A year later, the lawsuit was dismissed, but Core Software Technology, one of the minority shareholders in Imagesat, filed a new lawsuit against New York in court. This lawsuit was also dismissed and
Morris Talansky, one of the investors, filed a third lawsuit. As part of the lawsuit series, Steve Wilson, the founder of Core Software, which was one of the original initiators of venture, claimed that IAI deceived the other investors in the venture and took it over. In January 1998 the satellite that was supposed to be EROS A was launched as Ofeq-4 and failed. The satellite that was finally launched was in its replacement. In addition, he claimed that EROS B was not built according to the specifications provided by Imgesat, it was delivered three years late, and was in fact a duplicate of "Ofeq-5". Further legal disputes against the company included: a lawsuit by the CEO for bonus payments, allegedly owned to him for signing a deal with Angola. And an attempt to file a lawsuit against the company in Israel. Additionally, the
State Comptroller of Israel also published a critical audit report, in September 2005, about IAI's involvement in the program and losses incurred from it. Among the shortcomings revealed were: that the company's plans for the sale of satellite observation services were partial and unsubstantiated, in terms of the quality of the data and the reasonableness of the assumptions on which they were based on. All this in a market where IAI had no previous experience. And the business plan presented to the board of directors included a key marketing assumption, regarding long-term contracts, which was too optimistic. Later the company announced launching a new development program, for a satellite series called "EROS-NG" (Next Generation). In February 2022, the company had an initial public offering (IPO) on the
Tel Aviv Stock Exchange. ==Satellites==