Profile Chaim Eshed

摘要

Twenty years ago this month, Israel's Ministry of Defense (MoD) and state-owned Israel Aerospace Industries Ltd. (IAI) confounded skeptics at home and abroad by launching Israel's first military satellite, the Ofeq-1, westward against the Earth's rotation. Since then, Israel has continued to buck global trends with small, nimble, satellites that even the U.S. Department of Defense is considering to fulfill tactical intelligence needs. As MoD's longtime director of space research and development and co-founder of the Israel Space Agency, Brig. Gen. (ret.) Chaim Eshed has had singular influence on Israel's space program. For 30 years, first as head of research and development for Israeli Intelligence and then as MoD's space administrator, the professor of aeronautics and astronautics has battled back from launch failures and potentially crippling budget cuts, each time managing to nurture the program to its next milestone.