At exactly 11:32 a.m. last Monday, bathers at Israel's Palmachim Beach heard a sudden roar and watched in awe as a white rocket streaked into the sky. They were witness to the launching of Israel's first space satellite, which made the country only the eighth (after the Soviet Union, the U.S., France, Japan, China, Britain and India) to possess a rocket powerful enough to put a satellite into orbit. That capability, revealed by TIME in August, offers impressive evidence that Israel can launch missiles and hit targets in most Arab countries.
Ofek-1 (the word means "horizon") is an experimental satellite designed...
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