Schecter-layout409*.qxd:AAFEATURE-layout.Template 3/12/09 12:19 PM Page 2 In the aerospace arena, Israel has long been the most advanced nation in the Middle East. Aerospace Industry hen one thinks of aerospace ad - Saudi comsats vances, the Middle East is not usu - Wally the first region that comes to mind. Nevertheless, some countries in the area have accumulated remarkable achieve - ments. Turkey, for example, manufactures air - craft parts for major international projects, while Saudi Arabia operates a whole constel - lation of microsatellites. Tiny UAE has made inroads in the engine repair and overhaul in - dustry, and Iran has just become the ninth member of the space club —that is, a nation that has launched a satellite on its own Another of the AOI plants, the Aircraft booster rocket. Factory, has assembled Tucano trainers from The local aerospace industry with the Brazil, Chenyang fighters from China, and Al - least surprising record is that of Israel: With its pha Jet trainers from France under foreign li - close ties to the West, technologically savvy cense. Since July 2000 the plant has been as - public, and commitment to air power, the sembling the Chinese K-8E trainer, and in Jewish state is years ahead of the regional December 2005 it was authorized by China competition, particularly in the areas of UAVs , National Aero-Technology Import and Export satellites, and ballistic missile defense systems. to produce most of the aircraft’s parts. In fact, in terms of technology, it could be de - As for a presence in space, Egypt oper - scribed as the southernmost country of West - ates four satellites, including three telecom - ern Europe. munications spacecraft owned by Nilesat. The fourth, Egyptsat-1 (also called MisrSat-1), is the country’s first remote sensing satellite and Egypt was launched aboard a Dnepr rocket in 2007. Egypt is not an aerospace industry power - This 100-kg satellite carries a store-forward house, but the country’s Arab Organization communications payload, an infrared sensing for Industrialization (AOI) —a pan-Arab body device, and a high-resolution multispectral im - nationalized by Egypt in 1979 and managed ager. Egyptsat-1 was a joint project of the Na - by the Ministry of Industry —does supervise tional Authority for Remote Sensing and nine complexes. These include the Sakr Fac - Space Sciences (which employs a workforce tory (which produces artillery and air force of 120) and the Yuzhnoye Design Bureau, in rockets), the Engine Factory (which overhauls the Ukraine. the engines of old cargo, trainer, and fighter Egypt plans to add more observation aircraft as well as offering maintenance docks satellites in the coming years. Plan- for Egypt Air), and Arab British Engine (doing ned for a 2012 launch is Egyptsat-2, which is by Erik Schechter engine overhaul and repair work for Gazelles, already in the works and will have 60% local Contributing writer Mi-8s, and other aging military helicopters). content. Then there is the Desertsat program 38 AEROSPACE AMERICA/APRIL 2009 Copyrigh t© 2009 by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. Schecter-layout409*.qxd:AAFEATURE-layout.Template 3/12/09 12:19 PM Page 3 But several of its neighbors have achieved surprising progress in recent years, in areas ranging from UAVs to satellite manufacturing. Even in countries where funding shortages have kept aircraft production from becoming a reality, aviation-related activities are flourishing. with Carlo Gavazzi. When completed and sent the Iranians have been manu - Shahed-278 into orbit in 2017, this 120-kg remote sens - facturing spare parts. But he ing satellite will be able to scan all of Egypt doubts that they are produc - with a medium-resolution camera to study ing new platforms. “I don’t coastal erosion and desertification. In addition, think that it is [a case of] re - as the construction of Egyptsat-1 did before it, verse engineering,” he says. the Desertsat program will provide for the for - “It’s more [one] of deep con - eign training of Egyptian engineers. version….The quantities of helicopters don’t indicate that they are manu - facturing today.” The same goes for the HESA Iran Azarakhsh and Saeqeh-80 jet fighters, which Though Iran is blessed with oil and natural gas Inbar says are really F-5 E/F Tiger IIs with mi - reserves, the country has been hit by crippling nor system upgrades, and the Shafagh, a jet of economic sanctions following the 1979 questionable paternity heavily modified to re - takeover of the U.S. embassy in Tehran by Is - semble an F-22, as well as the Simorgh. lamic revolutionaries. The U.S. has stopped By contrast, since 2004 HESA has been exporting aircraft, vehicles, and other dual-use producing under license the Antonov An-140 technologies to Iran; it has also pressured airliner. The company also manufactures the other countries to adopt similar restrictions. Ababil UAV , while another state firm, Qods Nevertheless, the Iranian aerospace industry Aviation Industries, produces three other has limped along, and this Febuary it launched drones: the Talash, Saeqeh, and Mohajer-4. A Explorer 1, a research rocket capable of deliv - number of these UAVs ended up in the hands ering an indigenous satellite to space. of the Hizbullah, a Lebanese Shiite militia, and Under the auspices of its Ministry of De - were downed during the 2006 war with Israel. fense, Iran Helicopter Support and Renewal Inbar says the Iranian models are 20 years be - Company ( IHSRC , or Panha) maintains the hind those of Israel. “All their UAVs are old de - aging U.S.-made fleet purchased by the shah signs. Several are copies of South African and before the Islamic revolution. According to target drones,” he notes. “Others are copies of some reports, Panha has also been manufac - turing local versions of U.S. helicopters — namely, the Shabaviz 2-75 and 206-1, based on the Agusta-Bell A/B206 Jet Ranger and Bell 205 utility helicopters, and the Shabaviz 209-1, a derivative of the AH-1J Cobra gun - ship. Similarly, the Shahed-278, turned out by Iranian Aircraft Manufacturing Industries (HESA) , looks like a Jet Ranger knock-off. Tal Inbar, head of the Space & UAV Re - search Center at the Fisher Institute for Air and Space Strategic Studies in Herzliya, grants that Reverse-engineered F-5 AEROSPACE AMERICA/APRIL 2009 39 Schecter-layout409*.qxd:AAFEATURE-layout.Template 3/12/09 12:20 PM Page 4 Italian designs, [or are] old Chinese UAVs .” at the international level. It is a member of the In April 2003 the Iranian parliament es - Asia-Pacific Space Cooperation Organization tablished the Iranian Space Agency (ISA) to and cooperates with the U.N. Economic and conduct space research and coordinate re - Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific, lated efforts in the country’s research centers especially its Regional Program on Space and universities. The ISA chief serves as one Technology Applications; there are joint plans of the deputies of the Ministry of Communi - for a Center for Informed Space-based Disas - cation and Information Technology, and the ter Management. ISA has also worked with agency executes directives of the Iran Space China and Thailand on Environment-1, used Council ( ISC , also called the Supreme Space for monitoring natural disasters and launched Council). The ISC , set up in December 2003, aboard a Chinese rocket in September 2008. is chaired by the Iranian president and Iran contributed $44 million and a CCD cam - presided over by other senior officials, includ - era toward that program. ing the defense minister. However, it is a matter of pride for Iran to Iran had its first satellite, Sina-1, sent into be able to launch a satellite on a native orbit on October 2005. A Ukrainian firm built booster, says Tarikhi. Only eight countries the 160-kg device, meant to conduct geologi - have done so; the last to join the group was cal surveys (Iran suffers from devastating Israel, in 1988. earthquakes), and a Russian Cosmos- 3M To this end, the ISA has been working on rocket carried it into space. Still, despite the the Omid, an all-Iranian microsatellite, and the lack of Iranian input, Sina-1 has given the ISA Safir booster rocket —similar to the Shihab-3 valuable experience in ground control tracking ballistic missile but with an added stage. In Au - and telemetry handling. Iran was supposed to gust 2008, the Safir failed during launch and follow up with another satellite, this one de - lost its second stage in an explosion. Follow - veloped with help from local scientific institu - ing this setback, officials declared that the tions; however, the Mesbah suffered a damag - Omid had not been on board, despite earlier ing electrical short while being placed on a statements to the contrary. Then on February Russian booster. According to Parviz Tarikhi, 2 or early February 3, Iran launched an Omid an ISA scientist and engineer, the satellite is satellite aboard a Safir-2 into Earth orbit, join - still awaiting launch. ing the small circle of nations able to launch The Islamic Republic has also been active their own satellites with their own rockets. Israel Shavit The last fighter jet Israel attempted to build second only to the U.S. in the world of UAVs . was the Lavi, which never made it past the Beginning in the 1970s, Israel began to prototype stage because of funding problems. develop drones in order to reconnoiter its Still, Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) does Arab enemies without losing pilots to ground manufacture Gulfstream G200 and G150 busi - fire. Now, decades later, IAI manufactures a ness jets , and also provides system upgrades slew of UAV models —the Heron TP MALE , for F-16s , C-130s , and older military aircraft.