BGU | The Sky is No Limit

From the Editor

(Left to right): BGU President Prof. Daniel Chamovitz, Israeli entrepreneur and astronaut Eytan Stibbe, and BGU VP for Regional & Industrial Development Prof. Dan Blumberg

Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) has, in recent years, invested considerable resources in aerospace engineering and more specifically in remote sensing and satellites, with the understanding that the field has far reaching potential. BGU’s space research is led by Prof. Dan Blumberg, the University’s Vice President for Regional and Industrial Development, who was also recently appointed chairman of the Israel Space Agency, Prof. Arnon Karnieli, the founder and head since 1988 of the Remote Sensing Laboratory at the Jacob Blaustein Institutes for Desert Research, and Dr. Shimrit Maman, Director of BGU’s Earth and Planetary Image Facility. Pioneering aerospace research in the Israeli academy, BGU signed a long

term cooperation agreement with NASA – the American national space agency – in 1992, under which NASA made advanced laboratory equipment available to University researchers and conducted joint field experiments with them. The first of these experiments took place 30 years ago, in August 1993. The success of this collaboration led to the establishment of the facility for atmospheric particles measurement and space sensors calibration at Sde Boker. In 2005, the Israeli and French space agencies signed an agreement to build, launch, and operate VENμS, Israel’s first scientific observation satellite, which carries out agricultural and ecological research. The satellite was launched in the summer of 2017.

BGU signed a long-term cooperation agreement with NASA in 1992. The first joint field experiment took place 30 years ago, in August 1993.

2 | English Edition | November 2023