News

Dan Ariel, son of Prof. Meir Ariel who is the head of the centre for Nano-Satellites and New Space at the university of Tel-Aviv, was murdered in the terrible Iron Swords war. ASRI is grieving with Prof. Meir Ariel and the family.

The Asher Space Research Institute at the Technion, in collaboration with the National Centre for Space and Science in the United Arab Emirates and ImageSat International, are developing a first-of-its-kind technological demonstrator to address the global climate crisis. As part of the demonstration, a satellite will be developed to control and reduce the amount of solar energy that reaches the earth from the sun, thereby reducing global warming by up to one and a half degrees per year. The operational satellite will be eventually placed at the first Lagrange point (L1), at a distance of about one and a half million kilometres from the surface of the earth, and will perform a variable movement towards the sun and back to the earth, by controlling the shading sail. In this way, the satellite will be able to maintain its position in space for a significant duration and without dependence on complex propulsion systems. In addition, tilting the sail, or controlling the sail's ability to transmit light, will make it possible to determine the amount of solar energy reaching the Earth's surface from the sun and adapt to global climate needs. This ground-breaking project offers an original way to cope with the global climate crisis and perhaps even stop its destructive effects. Controlling the amount of energy that reaches the earth from the sun may even allow humanity in the future to directly control the desired climate over areas of interest on the earth and possibly prevent droughts and other climate related natural disasters. https://www.yediot.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-6328321,00.html https://www.israeldefense.co.il/node/58428 https://www.maariv.co.il/business/tech/Article-1013307 https://www.ynet.co.il/environment-science/article/bklaix0i2#autoplay

Dr. Guy Marcus, who has recently completed his PhD under the supervision of Prof. Pini Gurfil, won the prestigious Merhav Award for his research titled “Long-term Bounded Satellite Formation Flying around Mars and the Martian Moons”. Congratulations to Guy!

Dr. Hoffman made five flights as a space shuttle astronaut, including the first mission to repair the Hubble space telescope. With the completion of his fifth space flight, he has logged more than 1,211 hours and 21.5 million miles in space. Dr. Hoffman was NASA's second Jewish astronaut and the second Jewish man in space (after Soviet cosmonaut Boris Volynov), and on his 5th and last flight, he took with him a small Torah scroll, and read from the book of Genesis during the flight. Dr. Hoffman came to the Technion and gave an interesting talk at the visitors' centre about the work being done on Mars                 After the lecture Dr. Hoffman came to visit ASRI, where he was met by ASRI's Director, Prof. Yoram Rozen, and toured ASRI's different labs. Then signed the branded envelopes made especially of the occasion.    

Prof. Pini Gurfil, ASRI member and former ASRI Director, wins October 2022 ISF Grant to study a new method to control satellite orbits using low-thrust propulsion. The new method, termed “Resonant Orbit Control”, attempts to modify satellite thrust in a certain periodic pattern, so as to achieve better fuel efficiency for long-term operation.    

The Aerospace faculty is renovating its Control Laboratory, and in the meantime its people are being hosted in the ASRI building for the next few months. We wish them all a nice and productive stay with us, and hope that their lab will be all done and ready on time and as planned!

On June 12th, 2022, ASRI had a visit from the Technological Institute of Aeronautics (ITA), Brazil.

On May 10th, 2022, the Ambassador of Italy to the State of Israel visited ASRI.

ASRI member Prof. Joseph Lefkowitz from the Faculty of Aerospace Engineering is one of this year's Asher Grant recipients, for his research about Low-power Hall thruster Diagnostics using Optical Emission Spectroscopy.

ASRI member Prof. Yaron Amouyal from the Department of Materials Engineering is one of this year's Asher Grant recipients, for his research on Thermoelectric materials.