History
In the 70's and 80's Israel developed the infrastructure needed for research and development in space exploration and sciences. This activity was marked with the development of satellites and launching facilities, and had the proclaimed goal of Israel entering the "club" of states with those abilities. In November 1982 the Minister of Science and Technology, Prof. Yuval Ne'eman, announced the formation of an agency which could coordinate and supervise a national space program.
In 1984 the National Space Knowledge Center was established in cooperation with Israel Aircraft Industries; a contract was signed between IAI and Ministry of Defence for the development of the needed infrastructure and of Israel's first observation satellite. This came to fruition in 1988 when Israel launched the first in a series of Ofeq satellites and thus became one of only a few nations in the world possessing an indigenous space launching capability (see timeline of first orbital launches by country). The project management at Israel Aircraft Industries was headed for many years by Dr. Moshe Bar-Lev.
Read more about this topic: Israel Space Agency
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