On Sunday, January 30, government representatives from Israel and officials from the European Space Agency signed a new Cooperation Agreement in the Israeli city of Tel Aviv. The document calls for more intense cooperation between the two parties in upcoming ESA projects. Israel and ESA should now find it a lot easier to create a framework in which to extend and deepen their cooperation. Scientists in the near-Eastern nation are undoubtedly be very excited about the prospect of working together with colleagues in Europe on joint, space-related initiatives.
At the conference held in Tel Aviv, ESA was represented by Director General Jean-Jacques Dordain, who signed the Agreement with Dr Zvi Kaplan, the Director General of the Israel Space Agency (ISA).
The Israeli Minister of Science and Technology, professor Daniel Hershkowitz, and the Director General of the Ministry of Science and Technology, Menachem Greenblum, were also in attendance.
Israel began discussing the signing of the Cooperation Agreement with ESA back in 2007. In the mean time, the two parties identified areas of common interest, especially in the fields of space exploration and space sciences.
The Eastern nation has a very rich tradition with contributing to a host of scientific and technological projects that won it worldwide acclaim. It also has a very long tradition of involvement in the aerospace industry.
“In the 1970s and 1980s, Israel developed its own infrastructure needed for research and development in space exploration, including developing the Shavit launcher,” ESA says in a press release.
“In 1983, the Israel Space Agency was established as the governmental body to coordinate all Israeli space research programs for scientific and commercial goals,” experts at the organization go on to say.
“Israeli researchers have been cooperating for many years in several European space science projects, such as Huygens, Hubble, Cluster and COROT. In 1995, Israeli students joined an international workshop organised by ESA to develop a concept for a Moon exploration probe,” ESA concludes.
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