A one man space agency

A space agency of one man, and which was identified with him, is facing a male exchange. The engineer and Col. (Res.) Avi Har-Evan retires. period summary

The article was published in Issue 72 of the Galileo journal, August 2004

Published first on the science site. 2.9.2004

This news was re-edited on May 15, 2021. At the beginning of the week, the Effendi Hotel in Acre was set on fire during the riots that broke out in Acre (simultaneously with other places in the country). The Efendi Hotel, owned by Uri Yeremias, whose restaurant - Uri Bori - also burned down, was the target of an incited gang, which tried not only to harm Jewish residents but also to sabotage coexistence in Acre.

Har-Evan was one of the guests of the hotel, and was unable to escape the fire in the ancient building, as of these hours he is in a hospital in a serious condition being sedated and ventilated. I got to know my father during his years as CEO of the Israel Space Agency. He served under nine ministers of science (and for a few more days with the tenth), and demonstrated extreme professionalism. He also took the science site seriously and among other things helped in the organization The interview with Ilan Ramon in June 2002, about six months before the disaster. We wish him a speedy recovery.

In the comprehensive interview I conducted for Galileo magazine, he sheds light on the story of the Israeli space program.

 

Avi Har-Evan on a joint visit to the Technion with the former head of NASA, Dan Goldin

Between the time of its delivery and its publication, the tenth Minister of Science in Har-Evan's career, Ilan Shelgi, took office

Almost 10 years ago, engineer and colonel (ret.) Avi Har-Evan was the only candidate for the position of director of the Israel Space Agency. Today at least ten candidates are offering themselves for the position. This testifies to Har-Evan's success in creating content in a role that was previously occupied by part-time academics and also, hopefully, to the importance currently attached to space exploration in Israel.

But Har-Evan must retire not because of the number of terms he has completed nor due to the "toothpaste" phenomenon that takes place in normal workplaces where the juniors seek to advance and pressure the seniors to retire; The reason for this is simple: there is no one to do it - Har-Evan and his secretary are the only two employees of the Israeli Space Agency. Nevertheless, the law states that he must retire upon reaching the age of 65. We took the opportunity to interview Har-Evan and learn a little about the state of the ninth space power. Hare-Evan has a part in us becoming a mini space powerhouse: in the aerospace industry he was one of the developers of the Comet satellite launcher that brought us to this status.

Har-Evan was born in 1939 under the name Abba Hartstein (hence the accented B). He changed his last name when he went on a mission as part of his military service. He graduated from Rehavia High School in Jerusalem, and completed his studies as an electrical engineer at the Technion in 1963 while serving in the IDF. In the army, he first served in the artillery corps, among other things, in research and development, and then performed professional duties within the anti-aircraft system: "I was an assistant research and development officer, when the 70L anti-aircraft guns arrived in the sixties, I was involved in adapting them to the new environment in which they have to operate."
Har-evan may not have touched space in the 50s, but at least he reached the stratosphere: "In my role as an assistant R&D officer in the artillery corps, I helped introduce sophisticated equipment to the artillery corps - computers, systems for measuring distances, and even radiosondes - a device that ascends with a balloon and with which the meteorological service is able to receive atmospheric data up to a height of tens of kilometers. Today they use rockets that send them to a height of 40-1979 kilometers and then a parachute is opened with a box that descends and transmits the profile of the atmosphere. In any case, the artillery corps is the most sophisticated corps in the IDF in terms of equipment among the fighting ground forces. Later Har-Evan also engaged in command positions such as commanding officers' courses. "Then I transferred to the IDF development system - Amalah, and served in it until my release in XNUMX at the rank of lieutenant colonel as head of the R&D department - a body that later became the IDF's general MPA (Military Equipment Development Center) of today. "I served for a certain period as deputy head of R&D. As part of this service, I was privileged to be the head of a group that received the Israel Security Award."

"Upon my release, I managed the Israeli branch of a multinational hi-tech company for sophisticated control equipment - Fisher & Porter. In 1982 I moved to the Aerospace Industry, where I worked in management and development positions, and among other things, I headed the program for the development of the Israeli Shavit launcher; I was responsible for R&D, planning and marketing in one of the divisions. I retired from this position on December 31, 1994. On January 1, 1995, I assumed the position of Director of the Space Agency."

Izroh space program

Before Har-Evan took office, the space agency operated with a very low profile. The agency was managed on a part-time basis by several academics, including Prof. Dror Sade (deceased), Prof. David Abir, Prof. Akiva Brannon and Dr. Marcel Klein, whose powers and budgets were limited to a half-time position and even without a standard for the position. The real space activity was in the Ministry of Defense.

The Space Agency was established in 1983 according to a government decision initiated by the Minister of Science at the time, Yuval Naman, in which it was stated that an Israeli space agency would be established near the Ministry of Science (as a side note, it is worth noting that Amnon Barzilai wrote on several occasions in Haaretz that the agency was intended to be a cover for military space activities). In 94, a committee was established on the opinion of then Director General of the Ministry of Finance David Brodt and Director General of the Ministry of Science Zvi Yanai, headed by Uziah Galil, and its members were Dr. Benzi Neve, former director of Raphael and later head of the first Mafat, and Prof. Yosef Singer, Later the president of the Technion, and two years ago he won the Israel Prize. This committee was supposed to examine whether there is indeed justification for the existence of a civilian Israeli space agency when it is known that there is extensive activity in the field within the security system.

The committee's conclusions were positive and even recommended providing that agency, which will be under the responsibility of the Ministry of Science but not a part of it, with a budget of 5 million dollars per year. The condition was that the products developed as a result of the government investment would generate income in the future. Zvi Yanai's period as Director General of the Ministry of Science was a record period in terms of budgets - the space agency's budget reached over 10 million shekels - over 3 million

A string of studies

"When I entered the position was standardized, but the budgets kept getting cut and we never reached the goal of 5 million dollars a year. Nevertheless, I was able to carry out many activities despite the tiny budget given, through coordination and information to the various bodies. These are the things I had to explain to members of other space agencies who raised an eyebrow and asked how we managed to do this on such a meager budget." Har-Evan was forced not only to show resourcefulness in the logistics field but also to cast new content in the entire role. He divided it into three areas and cultivated another area, a fourth.

"As part of my duties, I operated in three main official areas: the first area is the funding of research in the academy, and here I followed the policy of the Ministry of Science. We published reader votes, defining or not defining certain topics, announcing what the budget would be, the academy researchers would submit proposals, we would appoint a committee of judges of scientists who would review the proposals and submit their recommendations, and according to the available budget we had at our disposal, we would decide how many studies and which ones to fund. Two years ago, we also started funding a number of knowledge centers whose principle was a body - usually in academia - that conducts research and makes data available to the entire scientific community without the need to pay for their services, unless the requirements require additional work. Today we have three such knowledge centers and today we are about to announce two additional knowledge centers, which actually exist, but have not yet been officially recognized." Har-Evan refers, among other things, to a cosmic radiation reception center on Mount Hermon, a project to search for near-Earth bodies (NEO bodies) and a new center for collecting data on the Earth that will soon be established in Midrash Sde Boker.

The second area in which Har-Evan deals is integrative management of projects - joint management between academia and industry - something that is not typical in the Ministry of Science. Such joint management is difficult because of the different nature of the requirements. Projects of this type, as an example, are the TAUVEX project, Slussat, the second Technion (Texat) satellite and the David camera."

Third official field - foreign relations between space agencies. "When I came to the position, we only had an agreement with France, which I was a party to because there was a central committee headed by Prof. Yuval Neman that was established according to a government decision (and I was a member of it) that assisted in the management of SLA. In my departure, I can say that in addition to the agreement with the French CNES, we also have cooperation agreements signed with NASA, with the German space agency DLR, with the Indian space agency ISRO, and a memorandum of understanding with the Russian space agency. We also have cooperation, without an agreement, with the Dutch Space Agency, we are in the process of signing with the Canadian Space Agency, with the Brazilian Space Agency, with the Chilean Space Agency and we are trying to integrate into the activities of the European Space Agency, ESA (this is also a political problem simple). An agreement with South Korea is also on the way.

The agreements that put Israel on the map of space

As a result of these agreements we participated in several international projects. "Under the auspices of the agreement with the German Space Agency, we developed the David multispectral camera - a camera that photographs its destination on the surface of the Earth in several wavelengths, and then this information can be used to create a better understanding of the surface - in Al-Op, which we also financially supported. The Al-Op company managed to get together with the German OHB company a budget from the fifth R&D program. This camera is one of the strategic assets we have as a space agency and it will help us in other projects to build joint satellites with other countries."

"With the USA, the peak was the astronaut Ilan Ramon project, which was carried out under our responsibility - of the Israeli Space Agency, and which, unfortunately, ended in disaster. With the American space agency we have a project during which we assist in the measurement through the transfer of GPS data on the subject of the movement of the tectonic plates. Under our auspices there is an agreement between them and Midrash Sde Boker and we have a NASA communications node for receiving information from satellites, one of eight nodes that is under the responsibility of Salah, managed and financed by us at Tel Aviv University but serving the entire scientific community. We are in negotiations with the US about launching another astronaut, although it can be estimated that this will not happen in the coming years."

"Under the umbrella of our agreement with France, we were able to create good relations between the French space industry and our space industry and through them we were able to introduce our space industry products to international projects such as the Proteus satellite series and CNES microsatellites. We were able to introduce Rafael through the Slushest project to the world market, which until then had been blocked in front of them on the subject of space, and some of the propulsion systems of the satellites in the world include Rafael components, as well as Al-Op.

"We are currently in advanced negotiations with France to build a scientific microsatellite that will be part of the Global Monitoring, Environment and Security-GMES project. It is a 150-160 kilo micro satellite.

"As part of our agreement with India, we are assisting our industry to enter there in future projects (Har-Evan probably means a satellite that will be launched to orbit the moon, an agreement signed by Minister Zandberg during his visit to India in early 2004 AB) We have an agreement with India under which we will launch the telescope The science Tavex was developed from the funds of the State of Israel, with an investment of nearly 12 million dollars, which unfortunately did not come to fruition due to the economic collapse that was happening in Russia at the time. We managed to save the telescope - and in order not to be left with a white elephant, we launched it in 2006 on an Indian satellite.

As part of our connections with Europe, together with the Ministry of Public Security, we were able to enter the Galileo project.

וAs mentioned, there is a fourth area, which is not in the official mandate of the Israel Space Agency, but Har-Evan sees it as the main vocation: the educational issue. "I believe that space is the best means in terms of its attractiveness to attract the youth and open to them a gateway to various sciences through which it will be possible to achieve achievements. Indeed, such projects are done in conjunction with the Ministry of Education and also independently."

Har-Evan cites the flight of the late Ilan Ramon as the turning point. According to him, thanks to the preparations for the official and educational experiments on the Columbia and the flight of Ilan Ramon, and especially after the disaster, the attitude of the education system towards space has changed. Just recently, two days before the meeting with Har-Evan, a scholarship awarding ceremony was held in the name of the late astronaut on behalf of the Commercial-Economic Club in Tel Aviv. At the ceremony, three scholarships were awarded to space-related students. At the engineering school near Tel Aviv University and at the Nitsanim school in Israel, space is an attractive field of study. Other important activities are done encouraging the space agency in the science museums in Haifa and Jerusalem (see: Peter Hillman - "Living on Mars", Galileo 55)

Today Har-Evan heads a committee appointed by Minister Zandberg for Global Earth Observation (GEO), part of an international initiative started by the US government about a year ago and headed by Foreign Minister Powell. Minister Zandberg was there and pledged that Israel would undertake to participate in the committee.

Nine Ministers of Science in nine years

Har-Evan set perhaps a record in the public service when he served under nine ministers: Shulamit Aloni, Benny Begin, Miki Eitan, Sylvan Shalom, Ehud Barak as deputy for a few months, Matan Vilnai, then Eric Sharon as deputy, Limor Livnet and now Modi Zandberg. These sing from the entire political spectrum. Since this position is a professional position and not a political one, the ministers did not ask to fill it with their own people.

One of the records that Har-Evan describes a record, after a visit to Israel by the director of NASA at the time, Dan Goldin in 2001, he met with Prime Minister Sharon and then as a result of the visit, the Prime Minister was convinced that a budget should be made and even made sure that the government budgeted NIS 50 million over 3 years Regarding the issue of space, Har-Evan does not know where the budgets went, but Minister Zandberg stated more than once that all the cuts were at the expense of science and not at the expense of culture and sports, so that those 50 million shekels went to completely other areas, and even Sharon was surprised to hear that they were dissolved and did not serve their purpose. "

Har-evan stands in a dilemma regarding the question of substitutes. He is not ready to prefer this candidate over another candidate out of the ten known ones. He already stood by this once when he was looking for an astronaut candidate and in the end passed the decision on to the Air Force. This time, the journalists received an orderly announcement about the formation of a five-member search committee, headed by the Director General of the Ministry of Science and Technology Ms. Atlia (Tali) Rosenbaum. It will also have members, the representative of the State Service Commissioner, Yaakov Berger, the representative of the Forum of Chief Scientists of the Government Ministries, Dr. Sonia Michaeli (Ministry of Immigration and Absorption), and two leading scientists, who have knowledge and familiarity with the field of space, Prof. Moshe Gelman, head of the Asher Institute for space research at the Technion, and Prof. Amnon Ginati who holds a senior position at the European Space Agency (ESA). 

 The Ministry of Science and Technology is looking for a manager for the Israel Space Agency 
  Ministry of Science and Technology - press release

3.6.2004 

Director of the Israeli Space Agency Avi Har-Evan (in the middle) with colleagues from Canada * On the left with the short sleeves: Steve McLean who was the mentor astronaut of the late Ilan Ramon and now accompanies his family * On the right Marc Garneau, President of the Canadian Space Agency

If you have a scientific education? Experience in promoting and developing space projects? Ability to manage negotiations? Proven scientific and managerial ability in the fields of space research?
You can apply for the position of Director of the Israel Space Agency!!!
The Ministry of Science and Technology established, last week, a search committee to find a candidate for the position of director of the Israel Space Agency (SLA), since the current director of the space agency, Mr. Avi Har Even, who has held the position for about a decade, retired during the summer.
The search committee will examine the qualifications of the candidates for the position, upon completion of its deliberations the committee will submit its recommendations to the Minister of Science and Technology, who is in charge of the Space Agency.
The committee has five members, headed by the Director General of the Ministry of Science and Technology of the Republic, Atalia (Tali) Rosenbaum. It will also have members, the representative of the State Service Commissioner, Mr. Jacob Berger, the representative of the Forum of Chief Scientists of the Government Ministries, Dr. Sonia Michaeli (Ministry of Immigration and Absorption), and two leading scientists, who have knowledge and familiarity with the field of space, Prof. Moshe Gelman, head of the institute of space research at the Technion, and Prof. Amnon Ginati who holds a senior position at the European Space Agency (ESA).
The Space Agency was established in 1983 by virtue of a government decision and is in charge of the civil space activities of the State of Israel, including contracting with foreign space agencies, developing infrastructure in the field of space, initiating and funding research in the field of space and assimilating the topic of space in the public, especially among youth, as a promoter of awareness of the fields of science.