According to Russian media Russia’s Svobodny space centre, used in recent years to launch US and Israeli satellites, will be shut down.
"Our authorities have received the official confirmation on this from Moscow" - spokesman for the governor of the Amour region, where the centre is based.
The administrative chief in the town of Uglegorsk, where the Svobodny centre is based, meanwhile said that an Israeli satellite launch was scheduled there for 2008, but could not confirm that it would go ahead as planned.
The first images from the D3 Eros B1 satellite were transmitted to the control room of Israel Aircraft Industries (IAI), today. The 70-centimetre resolution photograph shows parts of Europe 500 kilometres below the spy satellite.
The Start-1 rocket carrying the 350kg Eros-B Israeli distant earth probing satellite was launched at 16:47 GMT (20:47 Moscow time).
"The rocket, transformed from a Topol intercontinental ballistic solid-fuel missile, started off from a mobile launcher at 8:47 p.m. Moscow time" - Space Forces spokesman Col. Alexei Kuznetsov.
The (Earth Resources Observation Satellite) Eros-B satellite has been be deployed into a solar synchronous orbit at an altitude of 600 kilometres, and will circle the globe roughly every 95 minutes.
The satellite manufacturer ImageSat International is partly owned by government-held Israel Aircraft Industries, the country's biggest defence company. The EROS A1 satellite, the first in the series, was successfully placed in orbit on the 5th December 2000 by a Russian Start-1 rocket.
The Eros B satellite has been successfully launched from a mobile pad at the Svobodny Cosmodrome. The military spy satellite reached the correct orbit 20 minutes later.
Deployment of the solar cells will occur within the next 24 hours. The satellite will be used to monitor the Iranian nuclear program. The word on the street says that the spy cameras can resolve objects as small as 70 centimetres.
The Israeli satellite of remote sensing of the Earth Eros B on Thursday was brought to the Svobodny cosmodrome in the Amur region.
"The date of the launch of the spacecraft will be set later, but the satellite will be placed in orbit without fail in late April." - Svobodny Spokesperson.
The Russian carrier rocket Start-1 is expected to place the satellite in a solar-synchronous orbit at an altitude of 600 kilometres. The first Israeli commercial satellite Eros A was successfully launched from the Svobodny cosmodrome in December 2000. According to specialists, the new spacecraft will make it possible to take photographs of the Earth of a higher quality.
The Svobodny cosmodrome was created 10 years ago on the base of a missile division was originally built in 1968. The former strategic missile base is located 120 km north of Blagoveshensk and was closed down in late 1993, after an agreement on the Strategic Arms Limitations Treaty START-2.
Position: Latitude 51° 42' N longitude 128° 00' E
A total if four satellites have been launched from the spaceport. The latest launch was performed in 2001 when the Swedish satellite Odin was orbited.