The control tower at Ben-Gurion Airport will be named in memory of Lt.-Col. Ilan Ramon, Israel's first astronaut, in a ceremony Tuesday evening. It will now be officially referred to as "Ramon Tower."

Members of the Ramon family, Transportation Minister Meir Sheetrit and senior Airport Authority officials are expected to attend Tuesday's ceremony.

Gabi Ophir, director-general of the Airports Authority, came up with the idea. He and other members of the authority thought that naming the tower after Ramon was an appropriate way to pay tribute to the memory of his dreams of the advancement of science and aviation, an authority spokeswoman said.

Ramon was aboard the Columbia space shuttle when it broke up on reentry in February 2003. He and the six American crew members were killed.

The ceremony will begin at Ben-Gurion Airport at 6 p.m.

While the Ramon family intends to be present at the dedication ceremony of the Ben Gurion Airport control tower, Rona Ramon said she would not attend Wednesday's launch of space shuttle Discovery. Ramon claimed that the pain over her husband's death in the Columbia shuttle disaster was still too fresh.

NASA had invited the families of the seven Columbia astronauts to the Discovery launch, the first shuttle mission since Columbia broke up on re-entry two-and-a-half years ago, killing all board.

"It (the launch) is not for me at the moment," Rona Ramon told Israel Army Radio Tuesday. "All the families will be there except for Evelyn Husband (widow of Columbia commander Rick Husband) and me."

"Every one goes through their own process in their own time," she said, noting that one of the families of the 1986 Challenger disaster would only now be attending another launch. Challenger exploded 73 seconds after launch, killing its seven astronauts.

Ramon said she would watch the launch on TV, even though it would be difficult. "There are very mixed emotions here, taking me back to those crazy emotional seconds when Ilan took off for space," she told the radio. "There was a lot of happiness mixed with concern. And the concerns can materialize. It is a dangerous business as we know."

Ramon said she harbored no bitterness now toward NASA and supported the decision of the other families to attend the launch.