Israel’s First High-Tech Ambassador in Space January 2003 First Israeli astronaut, Col. Ilan Ramon Courtesy NASA
NASA Mission patch Israel’s first astronaut – Air Force Col. Ilan Ramon – is scheduled to take part in the NASA Space Shuttle Columbia’s next mission. STS-107 is a 16-day research mission that is slated to be launched on January 16, 2003. The mission is a multi-discipline microgravity and Earth science research mission with a multitude of international scientific investigations to be conducted continuously during the planned 16 days on orbit. Ilan Ramon: „Being the first Israeli astronaut – I feel I am representing all Jews and all Israelis. I’m also the son of a Holocaust survivor – I carry on the suffering of the Holocaust generation, and I’m kind of proof that despite all the horror they went through, we’re going forward.” Ramon, a former F-16 squadron commander and chief of weapons-system development acquisition for the Israeli air force, has been training at the Space Center in Houston, representing the Israel Space Agency, since 1998. His role this time, however, is purely scientific. His main responsibility in space will be to use a multispectral camera to track dust particles from the sandstorms that blow from the Sahara over the Mediterranean and Middle East. The study – the Mediterranean Israeli Dust Experiment, designed at Tel Aviv University – is intended to provide information on how dust affects rainfall. Background On December 11, 1995, US President Bill Clinton and Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres announced that they had agreed „to proceed with space-based experiments in sustainable water use and environmental protection” and that, as a part of this effort, the United States „will also train Israeli astronauts to participate in these programs.” It was also decided that the astronaut would be a payload specialist for an Israeli scientific experiment to be decided by the Israeli Space Agency (ISA) with the approval of NASA. The ISA-developed cooperative payload, entitled Mediterranean Israeli Dust Experiment (MEIDEX), will contain ultraviolet, visible, and near infrared array-detector cameras and will be launched aboard the shuttle to obtain calibrated images of desert and transported pollution aerosols over land and sea. The experiment will provide sound scientific information about atmospheric aerosols, as well as complementary data for NASA’s Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer (TOMS) and Moderate-Resolution Imaging Spectro-radiometer (MODIS) instruments. Israel Space Agency The Israel Space Agency, established in 1982, is a coordinating body, using consultants and subcontractors for devising and implementing its policy and programs. Although Israel is a very small country, both territorially and in population, it is highly advanced in science and technology and this is reflected in its activities and achievements in space. It has become a member of a highly exclusive „club” of countries who have designed, built and launched their own satellites. The Israel Space Agency and the Israeli industry and academia are involved in different stages of research, development or operations of a series of space and satellite programs, among the most well-known the Ofeq and Amos satellites.
