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Swarm theory & Israel’s Satellites of Tomorrow

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 “It is much easier to change a payload module than launch a new satellite.”

€1.5 million from the EU for innovative research at the Technion dealing with disaggregated satellites.The free-flying satellite modules will form a fractionated satellite in space. 



The European Research Council (ERC) will provide €1.5 million for research by Prof. Pini Gurfil of ASRI at the Technion, who proposes launching satellites in parts – that together communicate wirelessly and operate as a complete satellite. The ERC Starting Independent Researcher Grant is considered Europe’s most prestigious research award. Its aim is to encourage pioneering frontier research in any field of science, engineering and scholarship.

“In unexpected situations, such as damage from space debris, a satellite might not react well and could discontinue its original task; functional and financial damages are thus unavoidable,” explains Prof. Gurfil. “For example, if the payload is damaged, the entire system becomes unusable, and in order to complete the task, the entire instrument must be replaced. This procedure is very expensive and time-consuming. It is much easier to change a payload module than launch a new satellite.”

This idea led to a new concept in space engineering termed disaggregated spacecraft. In disaggregated space architectures (DSA), several separate modules communicate with each other via wireless communication links, thus forming a single virtual platform. Each module has its own designated function or functions: navigation, attitude control, power generation and payload operation. The independent modules are able to distribute resources among themselves and do not have to be very close to each other to operate. They only have to be in relative proximity, such that they form a cluster.

DSA constitutes a new type of space engineering, which is expected to be more efficient in terms of responsiveness; responsiveness is the ability to adapt to unexpected scenarios resulting from several sources of uncertainty at different levels of task design and execution. 

The final goal of the proposed research is to develop innovative technology that will enable actual flight in a DSA formation; specific objectives include: 

(a) development of algorithms for long-term semi-autonomous maintenance of the cluster and the cluster network, while allowing for the addition of new modules or removal of such modules; 
(b) finding methods for reconfiguration that guarantee cluster safety and mission-critical functionality; 
(c) design of distribution/gathering of the cluster, with the purpose of avoiding collision with space debris; 
(d) development of logic and ways to share resources within the flock network, with the ability to react in real-time; and 
(e) verification of these algorithms and methods in the Distributed Space Systems Laboratory, a research laboratory developed by Prof. Gurfil. 

The proposed research will create the necessary infrastructure for a space demonstration circa 2016.

Swarm theory & Israel’s Satellites of Tomorrow

Leave a comment

 “It is much easier to change a payload module than launch a new satellite.”

€1.5 million from the EU for innovative research at the Technion dealing with disaggregated satellites.The free-flying satellite modules will form a fractionated satellite in space. 



The European Research Council (ERC) will provide €1.5 million for research by Prof. Pini Gurfil of ASRI at the Technion, who proposes launching satellites in parts – that together communicate wirelessly and operate as a complete satellite. The ERC Starting Independent Researcher Grant is considered Europe’s most prestigious research award. Its aim is to encourage pioneering frontier research in any field of science, engineering and scholarship.

“In unexpected situations, such as damage from space debris, a satellite might not react well and could discontinue its original task; functional and financial damages are thus unavoidable,” explains Prof. Gurfil. “For example, if the payload is damaged, the entire system becomes unusable, and in order to complete the task, the entire instrument must be replaced. This procedure is very expensive and time-consuming. It is much easier to change a payload module than launch a new satellite.”

This idea led to a new concept in space engineering termed disaggregated spacecraft. In disaggregated space architectures (DSA), several separate modules communicate with each other via wireless communication links, thus forming a single virtual platform. Each module has its own designated function or functions: navigation, attitude control, power generation and payload operation. The independent modules are able to distribute resources among themselves and do not have to be very close to each other to operate. They only have to be in relative proximity, such that they form a cluster.

DSA constitutes a new type of space engineering, which is expected to be more efficient in terms of responsiveness; responsiveness is the ability to adapt to unexpected scenarios resulting from several sources of uncertainty at different levels of task design and execution. 

The final goal of the proposed research is to develop innovative technology that will enable actual flight in a DSA formation; specific objectives include: 

(a) development of algorithms for long-term semi-autonomous maintenance of the cluster and the cluster network, while allowing for the addition of new modules or removal of such modules; 
(b) finding methods for reconfiguration that guarantee cluster safety and mission-critical functionality; 
(c) design of distribution/gathering of the cluster, with the purpose of avoiding collision with space debris; 
(d) development of logic and ways to share resources within the flock network, with the ability to react in real-time; and 
(e) verification of these algorithms and methods in the Distributed Space Systems Laboratory, a research laboratory developed by Prof. Gurfil. 

The proposed research will create the necessary infrastructure for a space demonstration circa 2016.

Across the Universe – Rocket Engine Innovation

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It takes energy to keep a satellite positioned in space, or to move a spacecraft to it’s destination. It also takes ASRI brainpower from Technion – Israel Institute of Technology.
Testing the Camila at ASRI’s Rocket Propulsion Lab.
When the iron curtain came down, a scientific opportunity emerged. World-class scientists were among the millions of Russians that were free to find America. Empowered by cultural diversity and open to newcomers, Technion’s Asher Space Research Institute (ASRI) seized the moment and recruited Prof. Alexander Kapulkin. Today, he is the mastermind of the world’s most efficient, fast and effective rocket engine, the CAMILA.
Downstairs at ASRI, the future of earth and space science is being born. In the new Rocket Propulsion Lab, suspended within a huge stainless steel vacuum cylinder, the hand-sized electric-propulsion hall thruster CAMILLA is undergoing tests. The lab took form through the combined skills of three immigrants from the former USSR. Kapulkin, his student from the University of Dnipropetrovsk in Ukraine Maxim Rubinovitch, and mechanical designer Dr. Vladimir Balabanov, who came to Israel 20 years ago from Omsk.

CAMILA includes a revolutionary fuel-delivery design and an innovative magnetic field configuration that propels the engine faster. This innovation consumes less fuel, thus increasing engine efficiency. The impact will be less size, weight, and cost of small satellites. The new lab is set to be the only plasma process monitoring facility in Israel. CAMILA? The three scientists hope to experience her Sputnik moment within the next two years, when she will take her maiden voyage to propel her first microsatellite through space.

Across the Universe – Rocket Engine Innovation

Leave a comment
It takes energy to keep a satellite positioned in space, or to move a spacecraft to it’s destination. It also takes ASRI brainpower from Technion – Israel Institute of Technology.
Testing the Camila at ASRI’s Rocket Propulsion Lab.
When the iron curtain came down, a scientific opportunity emerged. World-class scientists were among the millions of Russians that were free to find America. Empowered by cultural diversity and open to newcomers, Technion’s Asher Space Research Institute (ASRI) seized the moment and recruited Prof. Alexander Kapulkin. Today, he is the mastermind of the world’s most efficient, fast and effective rocket engine, the CAMILA.
Downstairs at ASRI, the future of earth and space science is being born. In the new Rocket Propulsion Lab, suspended within a huge stainless steel vacuum cylinder, the hand-sized electric-propulsion hall thruster CAMILLA is undergoing tests. The lab took form through the combined skills of three immigrants from the former USSR. Kapulkin, his student from the University of Dnipropetrovsk in Ukraine Maxim Rubinovitch, and mechanical designer Dr. Vladimir Balabanov, who came to Israel 20 years ago from Omsk.

CAMILA includes a revolutionary fuel-delivery design and an innovative magnetic field configuration that propels the engine faster. This innovation consumes less fuel, thus increasing engine efficiency. The impact will be less size, weight, and cost of small satellites. The new lab is set to be the only plasma process monitoring facility in Israel. CAMILA? The three scientists hope to experience her Sputnik moment within the next two years, when she will take her maiden voyage to propel her first microsatellite through space.

Solar with NANO Style.

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Energy for Light
Technion Prof. Gitty Frey. 
Whole new concepts in domestic and industrial lighting, limited only by the breadth of the designer’s imagination could be making the “idea!” light bulb seen above the head in cartoon strips an icon of the past. But new concepts for emitting light is just one possible future application of the research done by Prof. Gitti Frey at the Faculty of Materials Engineering; new ways of receiving light – such as vastly improved systems for harnessing solar power is another. 
Born in the US and growing up in Israel, Gitti Frey, recruited to Technion in 2002 as a Landau Fellow in the prestigious Leaders in Science and Technology Program, specializes in organic electronics – plastic electronics that are functional electronically and optically. They emit light and can transmit electrical signals, or absorb light and generate energy such as electricity. Frey introduces whole new properties in this field, creating the most effective and useful self-organizing structures on the nano-scale. “Their functionality is not only due to chemical properties, but to the organization – the hierarchy, ” explains Frey. “In the nano dimension, we can only achieve order through self-direction. We self-organize organic and inorganic components into hierarchies applicable in optoelectronic devices – the outcome is a light emitting diode (or a solar cell).” 
Such a diode injects electricity and emits light – giving futuristic lighting with high color tunability, that promises to be more efficient, brighter, and using a lower voltage. Digital cameras often use such organic light-emitting diodes, explains Frey: “A whole new concept in lighting is coming… it is a general revolution, geared by a combination of materials engineering people working at the nano-scale and designers.” 
And the reverse process is equally fascinating for Frey, who is also working on a solar cell to convert sunlight into electrical energy. She predicts this research will lead to solar-power systems which are cheaper, unbreakable, flexible, more aesthetic and versatile. “We ask ourselves the fundamental questions about the conditions needed to self-organize a structure so we can generate currents in a specific material… we ask the fundamental scientific questions and the devices are the outcome…” 
Frey explains that the nature of her research makes it hard to fit into one discipline and the existence of multidisciplinary centers like GTEP what makes such groundbreaking research possible at the Technion. “We require different experimental tools from different departments: X-ray scattering in chemical engineering; the surface analysis lab in the Solid State Institute; high-resolution electron microscopy in Materials Engineering … Technion’s ability to evolve multidisciplinary structures based on scientific need brings a serious advantage in developing research.” 

Solar with NANO Style.

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Energy for Light
Technion Prof. Gitty Frey. 
Whole new concepts in domestic and industrial lighting, limited only by the breadth of the designer’s imagination could be making the “idea!” light bulb seen above the head in cartoon strips an icon of the past. But new concepts for emitting light is just one possible future application of the research done by Prof. Gitti Frey at the Faculty of Materials Engineering; new ways of receiving light – such as vastly improved systems for harnessing solar power is another. 
Born in the US and growing up in Israel, Gitti Frey, recruited to Technion in 2002 as a Landau Fellow in the prestigious Leaders in Science and Technology Program, specializes in organic electronics – plastic electronics that are functional electronically and optically. They emit light and can transmit electrical signals, or absorb light and generate energy such as electricity. Frey introduces whole new properties in this field, creating the most effective and useful self-organizing structures on the nano-scale. “Their functionality is not only due to chemical properties, but to the organization – the hierarchy, ” explains Frey. “In the nano dimension, we can only achieve order through self-direction. We self-organize organic and inorganic components into hierarchies applicable in optoelectronic devices – the outcome is a light emitting diode (or a solar cell).” 
Such a diode injects electricity and emits light – giving futuristic lighting with high color tunability, that promises to be more efficient, brighter, and using a lower voltage. Digital cameras often use such organic light-emitting diodes, explains Frey: “A whole new concept in lighting is coming… it is a general revolution, geared by a combination of materials engineering people working at the nano-scale and designers.” 
And the reverse process is equally fascinating for Frey, who is also working on a solar cell to convert sunlight into electrical energy. She predicts this research will lead to solar-power systems which are cheaper, unbreakable, flexible, more aesthetic and versatile. “We ask ourselves the fundamental questions about the conditions needed to self-organize a structure so we can generate currents in a specific material… we ask the fundamental scientific questions and the devices are the outcome…” 
Frey explains that the nature of her research makes it hard to fit into one discipline and the existence of multidisciplinary centers like GTEP what makes such groundbreaking research possible at the Technion. “We require different experimental tools from different departments: X-ray scattering in chemical engineering; the surface analysis lab in the Solid State Institute; high-resolution electron microscopy in Materials Engineering … Technion’s ability to evolve multidisciplinary structures based on scientific need brings a serious advantage in developing research.” 

A Tribute to Justice Moshe Landau

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Justice Moshe Landau (1912-2011)


Technion sadly laments the loss of Moshe Landau, an Honorary Chairman of its International Board of Governors and fifth president of the Supreme Court of Israel, who passed away at home in Jerusalem on May 1, 2011, aged 99. Gen. (res.) Amos Horev, chairman of the Israel Technion Society, describes Justice Landau, Technion’s longest-standing supporter, as the standard bearer of Technion and its Zionist values.

Landau was born in Danzig, Germany (today Gdansk, Poland) in April 1912. In 1933 he graduated cum laude from the University of London School of Law. That year, he immigrated to the British Mandate of Palestine. In 1937 he was admitted to the Bar of Palestine and was the youngest ever to be appointed judge—at the age of 28. He served as judge in the Haifa Magistrate’s Court (from 1940) and was appointed to the District Court in 1948.

Moshe Landau was among the leading participants in the administrative reorganization and the writing of a new constitution for the Technion in the 1950s. He gave legal counsel and acted as informal consultant for many Technion presidents.

Justice Landau, whose demise coincided with Holocaust Remembrance Day in Israel, presided over the trial of Adolph Eichmann 50 years ago. In 1974, he was a member of the Agranat Commission, which investigated Israel’s lapses in the run-up to the 1973 Yom Kippur War. In addition, Landau was a member of the International Court of Justice, and served as chairman of the commission for recognition of “Righteous among the Nations” in Yad Vashem. In 1991, Landau received the Israel Prize for his many contributions to the field of law.


From 1956 to 1962, from 1965 to 1966, and from 1969 to 1971 Landau served as chairman of the Technion’s International Board of Governors. In 1980, he received an honorary doctorate from the Technion, and in 1996 he received the Technion Medal. From 1993 until his death, he was Honorary Chair of the Board. 




Happy Independence Day 2011!

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Wishing you all a Happy Independence Day 2011 

from the entire Technion family.
A Message from Technion President Prof. Peretz Lavie.

Prof. Peretz Lavie
Spring in Israel is a time we mark great transitions.
Following Passover, comes Holocaust Memorial Day, in which we recall one of the greatest affronts to humanity in history. Out of this despair, we move a week later to honor Israel’s fallen – those men and women who lost their lives in building and securing our sovereign state. The culmination is Independence Day: the fulfillment of generations of yearning to have a place to call “Home”. 
That physical place – the Land of Israel – so often seems to have been won by wars, but this is only part of the story. The creation, independence and safety of the Land of Israel also depends on the wisdom and brainpower of its universities – in areas ranging from medicine, environment, energy, high-tech innovation and through to the most refined frontiers of research into nanotechnology. Welcome to Technion LIVE. 
Happy Independence Day! 
Technion President Prof. Peretz Lavie.
Technion workshop, 1940s.
Some History

In the years preceding the establishment of the State, Technion was an active center for the Jewish underground and a source of technological defense solutions crucial to the struggle for independence.
In 1948, with a student body of 680, Technion celebrated Israel’s Declaration of Independence.
The developing state created new demands on the veteran university. To meet these needs, Technion launched a variety of ambitious projects, including the establishment of the Department of Aeronautical Engineering in 1949, which laid the foundation for Israel’s successful aerospace industries and insurmountable Air Force.
From electricity to telephone networks, from founding industries to producing rapid housing to meet the demands of immigration, Technion was the powerhouse behind the evolution of the state.



Happy Independence Day 2011!

Leave a comment

Wishing you all a Happy Independence Day 2011 

from the entire Technion family.
A Message from Technion President Prof. Peretz Lavie.

Prof. Peretz Lavie
Spring in Israel is a time we mark great transitions.
Following Passover, comes Holocaust Memorial Day, in which we recall one of the greatest affronts to humanity in history. Out of this despair, we move a week later to honor Israel’s fallen – those men and women who lost their lives in building and securing our sovereign state. The culmination is Independence Day: the fulfillment of generations of yearning to have a place to call “Home”. 
That physical place – the Land of Israel – so often seems to have been won by wars, but this is only part of the story. The creation, independence and safety of the Land of Israel also depends on the wisdom and brainpower of its universities – in areas ranging from medicine, environment, energy, high-tech innovation and through to the most refined frontiers of research into nanotechnology. Welcome to Technion LIVE. 
Happy Independence Day! 
Technion President Prof. Peretz Lavie.
Technion workshop, 1940s.
Some History

In the years preceding the establishment of the State, Technion was an active center for the Jewish underground and a source of technological defense solutions crucial to the struggle for independence.
In 1948, with a student body of 680, Technion celebrated Israel’s Declaration of Independence.
The developing state created new demands on the veteran university. To meet these needs, Technion launched a variety of ambitious projects, including the establishment of the Department of Aeronautical Engineering in 1949, which laid the foundation for Israel’s successful aerospace industries and insurmountable Air Force.
From electricity to telephone networks, from founding industries to producing rapid housing to meet the demands of immigration, Technion was the powerhouse behind the evolution of the state.