May 13, 2015: Israel recently revealed how useful its new Amos 4 communications satellite has been. Since late 2013 the Amos 4 has been providing video feeds to Israeli military personnel in the West Bank, Gaza and at sea. Israeli firms developed satellite communications devices for vehicles (air, land, sea) and troops (or police) on foot that enable instant use of these satellite images. This has proved very useful in numerous operations so far.

This all began in mid-2013 when a Russian Zenit 3SLB rocket put a 3.5 ton Amos 4 communications satellite into orbit from the Soviet era Baikonur space center in Kazakhstan. The 3.5 ton Amos 4 was soon providing video and high-speed Internet service across Russia and the Middle East. This was the heaviest of the five Amos satellites launched since 1996. Five of these are still in service and another one, to replace Amos 2 (launched in 2003) goes up in late 2015. Amos 4 was the first Israeli satellite that could handle a lot of video feeds, which is particularly important in wartime.