Science Technology for National Development: The Case of Israel's Space Program

摘要

In the last 25 years Israel has created an advanced and sophisticated aerospace industry as a part of its national infrastructure. Six Israeli satellites are currently in orbit: "Ofeq 5" and "Ofeq 7" - defense remote sensing satellites, "EROS A" and "EROS B" - commercial remote sensing satellites manufactured by Israel Aircraft Industries (IAI) and owned by ImageSat, "Amos 1" and "Amos 2" - communications satellites, and the Technion's student satellite. In addition to developing the aerospace industry, Israel has also demonstrated its ability to launch satellites. Several more satellites are currently being developed and are expected to be launched in the coming years. The Israeli Space Agency (ISA) is involved in a variety of space exploration projects in which it cooperates with other space agencies, and the Israeli space industries compete in the global space market by promoting their communication satellites, remote sensing satellites and other products. In 2005 the estimated space sales of IAI were estimated at 231 million dollars (about 10% of the company's total sales that year). This figure placed IAI in the 32 place in the top 50 list of space industry manufacturers and services companies. On June 25, 2007, "Space News" published a list of the top fixed satellite service operators; in this list the Israeli company "SpaceCom" was ranked in the 22nd place, its annual revenues for 2006 standing at 56 million dollars. Currently, the backlog of orders received by the Israeli space industry is estimated at 1.5 billion dollars. The Israeli academic institution is also a part of this process. During 2001-2005 Israeli scientists and researchers involved in aerospace engineering published 163 academic articles, these articles constitutes 2% of all publications in this filed. Examination of this data on a per capita productivity scale places Israel in the first place in the world, ahead of the Netherlands, Singapore and the US. However, when the academic publications are examined on a quality scale, Israel is ranked in the fifth place.