Author Topic: The Shaviyt / Jericho launch failures (Read 4327 times)

Satori · « **on:** 10/12/2007 06:00 pm »

While writing an article to my space newsletter about the latest Israeli orbital launch and trying to get the statistics to the Shaviyt-1 launch vehicle, I came across with an previous notes (and with some references by Philip Clark) about two possible launch failures of the Shaviyt launch vehicle.

Apparentely this failures occurred in the third quarter of 1991 and in the second or third quarter of 1993. This could also have been orbital launch attempts with the Jericho missile.

Does anyone has any information about this or ever heard anything about this?

Thanks for any help on this subject!

MartianBase · « **Reply #1 on:** 10/13/2007 02:08 pm »

Shavit has 3 solid propellant stages taken from the Jericho II missile. From what I remember, 6 launches 3 failures. All of the failures Shavit Ofeg launches, the string of failures happened around the late 90s and details were very sketchy because they were military reconnaissance sats. Coleman Aerospace were planning commercial launches of Ofeg from Alcantara Brazil, contracts were signed to launch foreign rockets but the 2003 explosion set this back. Recently there was a successful launch of Ofeg this year in June from Palmahim.

Satori · « **Reply #2 on:** 10/13/2007 08:58 pm »

The Shavit and Shaviyt-1 have made 7 orbital launch attempts (Shaviyt - 2 launches; Shaviyt-1 - 5 launches). All Shaviyt launches were successful and two of the Shaviyt-1 launches were failures (22 January 1998 and 6 September 2004).

MartianBase · « **Reply #3 on:** 10/14/2007 07:40 am »

The third failure was in Sept 15th 94' I just checked it out.
because it was a military payload it barely got a mention in the press

'unacknowledged launch of an Ofeq sat'

This kind of hush-hush saves having to explain and multi-million dollar rocket explosion to the media

Satori · « **Reply #4 on:** 10/14/2007 01:03 pm »

Quote

MartianBase - 14/10/2007 2:40 AM

The third failure was in Sept 15th 94' I just checked it out.
because it was a military payload it barely got a mention in the press

'unacknowledged launch of an Ofeq sat'

This kind of hush-hush saves having to explain and multi-million dollar rocket explosion to the media

Yes, there was a failure on Sep 15 94, but several sources say that this was a Jericho-2 failure and not a Shaviyt failure.