Mitzpe Ramon becomes Israel’s space center, NVIDIA, NIS 100 million

The project to turn Mitzpe Ramon into Israel’s official “space city” is underway, with an aggregate investment of approximately NIS 100 million. The company Creation-Space is leading the move, which aims to turn Mitzpe Ramon into Israel’s largest civilian space ecosystem, which includes a technological campus with a control room for space missions, laboratories simulating the conditions of Mars, acceleration programs for start-ups and international academic research.

Along with NVIDIA as a technological partner, a series of governmental, philanthropic and private entities stand behind the investment, including the Jewish National Fund USA, the Mirage Fund, CreationsVC, the Growth Directorate and the Investment Authority of the Ministry of Economy and Industry, as well as the Innovation Authority and the Israel Space Agency operating under the Ministry of Innovation, Science and Technology.

The project, which received state grants and strategic cooperation with NVIDIA, will include a campus containing an R&D laboratory and a control room for monitoring cargo launches and managing space missions, simulation laboratories simulating the conditions of Mars, acceleration programs for start-ups and international academic research. In the past two years, the growth director accompanied the project from the preliminary research stages to its maturity, as part of a strategic move to become The Negev ecosystem for the development of the defense and aerospace cluster.

The global space industry has been undergoing a significant revolution in recent decades. From a field previously controlled by government bodies only, it is becoming a vibrant business market that includes robotics, energy and materials. In this reality, the key to success is technology that has proven its suitability for extreme conditions – even before it left the ground.

This is where Mitzpe Ramon’s unique advantage comes in: being the most isolated town in Israel, and its natural environment having many analogies to extreme environments on the Moon and Mars, make it a natural and accessible “field laboratory”. The “Space City” project will enable the development of technologies with “double value” – solutions that respond to the burning needs of the earth, and to the needs of the developing markets around activity in extreme environments in space.

The launch of the “Space City” rests on significant economic strength and trust on the part of state bodies, philanthropy and the private market. The project benefits from private investments, philanthropic investments, assistance from the Investment Authority and winning strategic government tenders from the Growth Directorate and the Innovation Authority and the Israel Space Agency, totaling approximately NIS 100 million.

The Space City is a joint venture led by the Creation-Space company, in cooperation with the Mitzpe Ramon local council, JNF-USA, the Mirage Fund and the American investment fund CreationsVC.

These days, the third cycle of the EXPAND acceleration program is launched in Mitzpe Ramon, which includes investment commitments of 3 million dollars each year to Israeli startups on behalf of the CreationsVC fund, combined with a professional envelope of the NVIDIA Inception program. The Mirage Israel Fund, JNF-USA, the McNess Fund of the Jewish Federation of Metro-West New Jersey, the Desert-Tech Innovation Center, Synergy7, 8200 Architects, PwC, the Dead Sea-Arava R&D, the Mitar Law Firm and the Mitzpe Ramon local council are also partners in the program.

The Minister of Economy and Industry, MK Nir Barkat, said: “The inauguration of the campus is a historic and exciting moment for the Negev, which is part of a much larger puzzle that we in the Ministry of Economy and Industry are building for growth in the State of Israel and the Negev in particular. The Ministry of Economy and Industry, under my leadership, led an investment of over 14 million NIS in the project, and together with Creation-Space we are today bringing a tremendous series of groundbreaking innovation and local pride. Through the Growth Directorate and the Investment Authority, and while implementing the regional cluster model, we are turning the relative advantage of Mitzpe Ramon into a tremendous economic growth engine. This move could not have happened without the strategic vision and in-depth process that we led in the office over the three years the latter, in laying infrastructures for growth and investments of hundreds of millions of shekels in the comparative advantages of the State of Israel.”

Elia Winter, head of the Mitzpe Ramon Council, said: “I congratulate the Creation-Space company and thank the Innovation Authority, the Ministry of Economy and the Ministry of Science and Technology, and my colleagues Minister Nir Barkat and Minister Gila Gamaliel for helping to make Mitzpe Ramon not only Israel’s space city, but Israel’s gateway to space.”