"So far, 20 high school student satellites have been launched into space – a phenomenon unique to Israel"

In most of the world, satellites are built by at least undergraduate students. This is according to Prof. Meir Ariel, head of the Space Engineering Center at the Faculty of Engineering at Tel Aviv University, who headed the Tevel 2 project, whose nine satellites were launched today.

"So far, 20 satellites built by high school students have been launched into space – a phenomenon unique to Israel." This is what Prof. Meir Ariel, head of the Space Engineering Center at the Faculty of Engineering at Tel Aviv University, who headed the project, said in a special interview with the Hidan website: "So far, 20 nanosatellites built by Israeli high school students have been launched into space. Starting with the series of satellites called Duchifat Derech Tevel 1 andTo date with the launch of nine Tevel 2 satellites – A project initiated by the Israel Space Agency in the Ministry of Innovation, Science and Technology."

Tevel 2 is a joint venture of the Ministry of Innovation, Science and Technology, Tel Aviv University and nine local authorities across Israel. The satellites were built under the management and guidance of the Faculty of Engineering at Tel Aviv University, in research and development centers in nine municipalities across the country, with a unique combination of populations: five municipalities from the Jewish sector (Yeruham, Shaar Hanegev, Ma'ale Adumim, Givat Shmuel and Herzliya), three from the Arab sector (Ein Mahal, Taibeh and Kafr Qara) and one from the Druze sector (Yarka).

"This achievement places the State of Israel in the global leadership in the development and launch of student satellites, as no other country has a similar program in this field."

"This involves the launch of nine 'nano satellites' intended for radiation monitoring. The scientific research is being carried out by the 'Sorek' Nuclear Research Center, which is responsible for the design, construction, and development of the sensors and payloads, in collaboration with Tel Aviv University."

"The satellites were built by approximately 300 outstanding high school students from 9 municipalities across the country. Each municipality underwent a rigorous process, in which a group of students was accepted and built one satellite under the guidance of Tel Aviv University's Space Engineering Center. A clean room was built in each municipality where the assembly, development, software writing, integration and testing processes were carried out, and the satellite command was managed through a network of ground stations shared by all schools involved."

"As part of the processes, the current launch is a continuation of previous launches and symbolizes an ongoing achievement - emphasizing the technological and educational success of the project, which promotes scientific education, brings the periphery closer to the center, and gives students the opportunity to take part in a unique national project."

"It is important to note that the satellites will be launched into a polar orbit in such a way that over the coming weeks they will begin to disperse randomly. This will create a relatively high-resolution coverage of the radiation map, with all satellites collecting data continuously and downloading the information to ground stations. This system is an integral part of the communications management protocol and scientific research accompanying the project."

"In addition, the project is an example of Israeli excellence – not only in its scientific and technological achievements, but also in that it encourages cooperation between students from different sectors (Jewish, Arab and Druze), thus symbolizing an encouraging message of unity and equality within the framework of a groundbreaking national project."

One of the satellites was built by students from the Sha'ar Hanegev Regional Council, many of whose homes were destroyed on October 7, 2023, and whose residents were murdered, raped, or kidnapped to Gaza. The head of the council, Ofir Libstein, was also killed defending his community of Kfar Gaza. According to Ariel, the students managed to meet the schedule for building the satellite despite the events of the massacre and the war that broke out after it. The satellite is now dedicated to his memory and will transmit from space to ground stations, in addition to the scientific data, the names of those murdered in the massacre. One of them was Ariel Dan's son, who was murdered at the Nuba party.

More of the topic in Hayadan:

• A group of 9 research satellites built by Israeli high school students from all sectors was launched into space
• Learning in the sky - Israeli student experiments arrived at the space station
• "Dokifat 3 proves that even under the threat of rockets and rockets it is possible to have quality scientific education" update on the success of the launch