2,000 km from Israel: The war moves to a new front - space

Against the backdrop of the Swords of Iron war, the Defense Ministry reports a significant increase in contracts with 86 "Blue and White" start-ups and small companies, amounting to approximately NIS 601M between October 2023 and September 2024 – five times more compared to the same period last year (according to Maf'at data). The deepening cooperation between Maf'at and Israeli start-ups enhances the independence of "Blue and White" production and strengthens the Israeli economy. The peak of this cooperation was marked at the Defense-Tech Summit of the Blavatnik Cyber Research Center at Tel Aviv University, in cooperation with Maf'at at the Defense Ministry, where speakers from Israel and abroad participated – including senior officials from the Defense Ministry, the IDF, academia, the entrepreneurship world, start-ups, and venture capital funds.

Notable participants included: Conference chairman and head of the Cyber Research Center at Tel Aviv University, Major General (Res.) Prof. Itzhak Ben-Israel, Director General of the Defense Ministry Major General (Res.) Eyal Zamir, Head of Maf'at at the Defense Ministry Brigadier General (Res.) Dr. Daniel Gold, Head of R&D at Maf'at Brigadier General Yehuda Elmekies, Head of the Choma Directorate at Maf'at Moshe Fatal, Commander of the Lotem Unit Brigadier General Yael Grossman, General Sir Nick Carter, former Chief of the British General Staff, Partner at the global Sequoia Fund Shaun Maguire, and many other senior officials and experts from both Israel and abroad.

The head of the Space Directorate at Maf'at, Avi Berger, said at the conference: "The Swords of Iron war – an intensive and aggressive war on seven fronts simultaneously, some of which are about 2,000 km from Israel. Iran spans 1.6 million square kilometers, making the space domain critical to supporting the operational activity of the IDF. From the lessons learned from the war so far, it is clear that we must do everything we can to effectively utilize the space domain, as space allows us to always know what is happening in the other fronts at any time. A satellite moves from Iran to Israel in just a few minutes and transmits the information to our intelligence units close to real-time."

"The new challenges we face now must be addressed. We need to aim for satellite constellations that will provide continuous information and collection across the entire Middle East, with full access for the IDF and the entire defense system. Our responsibility in the Space Directorate at Maf'at is to develop our space capabilities so that the IDF has full, available, and continuous access to all seven fronts."