The opening event of the Tevel 2 program, the second class of the flagship program in space education and the only one of its kind in the world, took place today (Wednesday, February 1st) at Tel Aviv University. The opening event took place as part of the 2023 Israel Space Week, which is led by the Israel Space Agency at the Ministry of Innovation, Science and Technology. The event took place in the presence of the Minister of Innovation, Science and Technology, MK Ofir Akunis, and with the participation of the Ministry's Director General, Gadi Arieli, NASA Deputy Administrator Robert (Bob) Cabana, the heads of the municipalities participating in the program for the next three years, teachers and students, as well as graduates of the program's first class. The Ministry of Innovation, Science and Technology is investing about NIS 9 million in this program.
Tevel (Students Building Satellites) is an educational-professional program that will be operated by Tel Aviv University and will provide its graduates with tools and capabilities for developing satellites and launching them into space, as was done in the program's inaugural class, which ended last year. The Tevel program is held in cooperation with the Ministry of Education, and the project is recognized as a final project for matriculation as part of the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) tracks. The graduates of the program will be the spearhead and the country’s ambassadors in the field of space, which has recently undergone a breakthrough with its opening to commercial uses, something that in the past was the domain of world powers.
Tevel is a three-year program in which 10th to 12th grade high school students participate. The project will be administered by the Center for Nanosatellites led by Prof. Meir Ariel and will involve students and researchers from the faculties of engineering and exact sciences, in the mentoring of the students in the implementation of engineering R&D and scientific research. The students participating in the program undergo full training in building a satellite, from the characterization and design stage, through the programming stage, the product development stage, and ending with environmental experiments on Earth in accordance with the characteristics of space, and up to its launch on a launch rocket launched by the Israel Space Agency's partners around the world. Tevel's satellites will contain a detector laboratory for measuring radiation in space, developed by the Sorek Nuclear Research Center, the purpose of which is to chart radiation in space by its effect on electronic components.
Minister of Innovation, Science and Technology, MK Ofir Akunis: "The launch of Tevel 2 is proof of the tremendous success of Tevel that we launched about three years ago. I believed in the Tevel project Immediately when it was presented to me about three years ago, and I ordered it to be launched, in a way that would include the maximum number of Israeli students. The fact that we are launching the continuation of the project here is decisive proof of its success. As Minister of Innovation, Science and Technology, I pledge to continue to enhance the accessibility of science to all citizens of Israel, while focusing on human capital in general and of our future generation in particular."
NASA Deputy Administrator Robert (Bob) Cabanagh: "I am honored to be here in Israel in honor of the Ilan Ramon International Space Convention and the Israel Space Week, and to promote educational projects with students from all over the country. We appreciate the fact that you continue to remember Ilan Ramon and invest in the future of Israel's young people and in education for STEM subjects."
Director of the Israel Space Agency at the Ministry of Innovation, Science and Technology, Uri Oron: "After the success of the Tevel 1 program, we are proud to start off on the journey with the Tevel 2 program. Today we already know that girls and boys from all over Israel, Jews and Arabs, religious and secular, can participate in an ambitious program in which they will construct, launch and operate satellites. The program encompasses hundreds of students and affects their entire environment. The Tevel program fulfills the boys and girls with a sense of capability and real experience in a growing and developing technological world and advances the field of space in Israel.
Omri Dinur, from Sderot, a graduate of the first class of the Tevel program, who is currently volunteering for national service at the Jewish Agency: "This program fulfilled a dream for us from a different and distant planet. I never imagined that my friends and I from the Negev would, at the age of 17, build a satellite from scratch, which would, at the end of a three-year process, then be launched into space. At this very moment, our nanosatellite, T5-sng, and its brothers in the Tevel series, are sailing 2,000 kilometers away from us, advancing education and space research in Israel while orbiting the Earth 12 times a day."
Dinur added: "I look at tomorrow's team today and I am filled with jealousy, but also pride, of the crazy journey they are going to undergo, the journey that will put them on a different path of life, if you want a different galaxy of life. This is an area where all the clichés are true – the sky is certainly not the limit."