Israel Space Agency

Ilan Ramon.

The Israel Space Agency (ISA, for Israel Space Agency) is the Israeli institution in charge of that country's space program. Founded in 1983, it has the capacity to build satellites, launch them and track them with its own tracking stations. Its first satellite was launched in 1988. The first Israeli astronaut was Ilan Ramon, who participated in Columbia's STS-107 mission as payload specialist in 2003, where he died when the spacecraft disintegrated during reentry into the atmosphere.