The Israeli space program is highly resilient. Unlike the Egyptian one where the loss of one satellite caused fatal damage to the program and the dismissal of the engineers

The words were said by Tal Dekal, a researcher at the Yuval Na'man workshop as part of a conference of the workshop on "Cyber ​​and Security in Space" that took place yesterday (Tuesday) at Tel Aviv University

As part of a conference of the Yuval Na'eman workshop for science, technology and security held today at Tel Aviv University, the researcher of the workshop, Tal Dekal, claimed that the loss of the Egyptian satellite EGYPTSAT-1, which lost contact with its operators in July 2010, severely damaged the Egyptian space program: "The effects of the loss of the satellite were devastating . Dozens of scientists in the Egyptian space program were dismissed from their positions and the launch schedule of the EGYPTSAT2 satellite was postponed without notification of a new date. According to those close to the Egyptian space program, it seems that at least in the next 5 years, Egypt will not have a significant visual spying capability."

"The meaning of space security is the ability to ensure sustainable access and use of space in the face of the threats in this environment" The definition of national space resilience used is: "A country's ability to deal with, absorb and recover from damage and/or disruption to the space systems it uses in a reasonable time and to an acceptable level of performance on the mind"

"The purpose of the research is to develop a measurement tool for a uniform and comparative examination of a country's resilience in the face of damage to the space systems it uses. Emphasis must be placed on the fact that today many countries are using systems that are not theirs or have been transferred in one way or another." Dekal explains and adds that "the motivation for the development of the index is the lack of a solution in the existing indices that would be uniform quantitative and comparative and would allow the measurement of national resilience. For example, I will present several leading indices: the Space Report is not a comparative tool, while the SSI is not quantitative and does not have a rating. Only countries with space programs and finally an index that we found to be suitable in the form of its construction for our purposes - the ICT development index is not related to space."

"The methodology we use is the analysis of reference scenarios from the field of space security in several ways. Then the analysis of the threat derived from the reference scenarios for space systems and the relevant vulnerability in the system and the analysis of the tools and capabilities required to deal with the reference scenario. At this stage we find metrics that reflect the same abilities and weight them."
"We build the reference scenarios in two ways: a top down analysis of general trends in the field of space security and a bottom up analysis of events related to space security through the prism of national resilience."

"Recent studies indicate that there will be an increase in the number of countries interested in access to space. There is a decrease in barriers to entry that allows for a "soft" entry for new players. There is a large density of communication satellites and with it problems in the electromagnetic spectrum.

"Space is becoming significant in various fields. Space is becoming more military even though no weapons have been placed in space yet, there is progress in transparency in the field of situational awareness.
Last year was the first year in which no significant space debris event was recorded. Countries tend to formulate plans to protect the space capability and not the satellite itself. There is a preoccupation with ways to prevent an arms race in space and ways to create transparency and build trust, mainly between the four main space powers Russia, China, the USA and Europe."

"Additional research that we carry out in the workshop analyzes the events themselves while trying to create a trend line based on actual occurrences. "Security events in space are events that harm safe and sustainable access to space and reduce the ability to use space"

"In the last decade there have been two weapons tests against satellites. We had one catastrophic random collision (Iridium-Cosmos) in addition to seven other recorded events. We have had at least three incidents of satellite blinding, a significant fire at a ground station, at least two satellite cybernetic attacks, more than five incidents of unexplained satellite loss and this at the same time as hundreds of incidents of blockages and interference. I will present several cases that are relevant to national satellite resilience."

"The first case happened in 2001 in Russia. A fire that broke out at the Serfukov 15 ground station destroyed one of the buildings. As a result of the fire, contact with three satellites was lost, a fourth satellite exited a maneuver but did not return to service. The vulnerability manifested in this incident is a completely ground safety problem that results in the loss of 4 satellites."

In September 2006, American official sources reported that American satellites suffered interference when passing over China. One explanation is that these interferences were allegedly caused by a Chinese optical laser rangefinder aimed at the satellites. This event is the first documented event of a ground impact on observation satellites using directed energy when the source is an apparently legitimate measurement system."

"On February 11, 2009, a significant collision occurred in the strip at an altitude of 800 km. We tie the ASAT events together with the collision, and in the context of national resilience, a large amount of waste requires constant and accurate monitoring of the waste, as well as frequent maneuvers of satellites, which significantly shortens their lifespan (as well as the lifespan of the operators)."

"It is important to emphasize that there were seven more recorded events that created additional waste but did not cause a catastrophe. Another interesting event is the unexplained loss of control over the Leviathan Galaxy 15. The loss in itself is not as interesting as the attempts and determination to regain control
On the downside, studying the steps taken to prevent satellite environmental interference can be a school of satellite wargaming. On the positive side, his ability to cooperate and determination led to his return to service after a long period of 9 months."

"And at the same time as all these events there are dozens of documented events of blocking with identifications of the source of the blocker in the Tehran area on opposition channels. The last event I was interested in dealing with was the loss of the first Egyptian observation satellite Egyptsat1 in July 2010. The satellite weighing less than a hundred kilograms orbits at an altitude of 700 km probably to this day."

"Three months before the announcement to the media, the operators lost control of the satellite for the third time in 3 years. After combined attempts with the Ukrainian developers, the announcement was made that the satellite was lost."

"The trivial international results are another massive piece of waste that will remain in orbit for decades on a deeper level. Lack of transparency and inability to make a decision to take a malfunctioning satellite out of service affects all satellite owners in the region for decades."

"In terms of Egyptian resilience, the effects were severe. The satellite program became a joke in Egypt. Dozens of scientists were fired from their positions and the ES2 launch schedule was postponed without notification of a new date.
Statements by senior officials in the Egyptian Authority indicate desperation, Mohammed Adel Yahya director of NARSS stated in an interview in the Egyptian press that "I have no other way to explain it, there is something in the way we do things that guarantees the failure of large projects of this type". Levin's life expectancy was five years"

"Now we will quickly jump to the proposed structure of the index:"
"To measure resilience, we classified the three files into sub-indices: access to space, use of space, and skills. Each sub-index is calculated according to relevant indicators or PROXI indicators, meaning a measurable parameter that can be associated with the sub-index."

Israel's space program according to the index
The State of Israel launched 14 satellites. Ten satellites are now in orbit with 100% success, including observation and SAR communication satellites. The Israeli launcher "Shavit" has the ability to launch into low orbits with a 75% success rate. Today there are 4 satellites on the shelf, including 2 nano observation satellites, a scientific satellite and a communication satellite.

In terms of commercial capabilities: in the Satellite 2012 conference a week ago, close to 30 Israeli companies participated according to international surveys whose sales are not in the sky but the diversity and innovation in space. In terms of service providers and satellite operators, Israel is an international leader.

"In Israel there is a good balance between the satellite service providers and the terrestrial providers, which ensures the survival of the capacity and the limitation of the effect in a variety of scenarios. In addition, Israel will be connected by three fibers to Europe at the same time as 8 teleports, some of which are integrated with fiber capability already today. In the context of skills in the field of space, here too Israel is filled with agencies, associations and research bodies that deal in a variety of fields from basic research to the development of applications for space systems."

In conclusion, Dekel says: "The evolving threats in space require a periodic assessment of a country's resilience in space. The satellite national resilience index is an effective tool for measuring the space component of the country's general resilience. The index provides tools for improvement to decision makers at the political, operational and commercial level."

"The index allows a comparative measurement of any country even if it does not have a space program. The index weighs ground capabilities as part of insights related to recent space security incidents.

More at the conference:

The conference opened with the words of Knesset member Tzipi Livni who said that "space provides strategic depth to the State of Israel". Next, the importance of space satellites at the national level and the challenges created by the increase in the number of countries that own space assets in recent years will be discussed. This increase, which coincided with the increasing dependence of the global economy on satellite systems, turned space into an arena of conflict between world powers. Nicolas Roche, Deputy Head of Delegation of the French Embassy in Israel, provided the European perspective to the situation that has arisen, according to which a binding code of conduct must be created for behavior in space. In addition, a speaker talked about the cyber threat to satellites and Ram Levy, a researcher at the Yuval Na'man workshop, told in his lecture about the Iranian cyber attack on a BBC TV station in London.

The Yuval Na'eman workshop for science, technology and security has been operating for a decade at Tel Aviv University and deals mainly with the fields of space and cyber. The workshop maintains an extensive research activity alongside an annual series of conferences and seminars with the participation of military and defense officials, politicians, academics and senior executives of leading Israeli and international companies. The head of the Yuval Na'im workshop for science, technology and security, Prof. Col. (Retd.) Yitzhak Ben Israel: "In recent years we have witnessed a continuous increase in the number of countries that own satellites, and at the same time an increase in threats to them. The growing cyber threat opens up new possibilities for damaging satellites and necessitates the creation of binding international rules to ensure activity in space."

More reports from the conference in the coming days.