The Israelis who want to build a computing cloud on the moon

On the occasion of the "Day of the Moon" Prof. Ran Ginosar of the Technion, president of Ramon Space, says in an interview with the website Hidan that the computer of the Genesis spaceship that crashed will have successors in Genesis 2 as well, but there is interest in the technology for various projects, one of which is a server farm for cloud computing on the moon

Prof. Ran Ginosar, Technion, President Ramon Spies. Self-portrait

On the occasion of "Moon Day" Prof. Ran Ginosar of the Technion, president of Ramon Space, says in an interview to Chiportal that the crashed Genesis spaceship computer will have successors in Genesis 2 as well, but there is interest in the technology for various projects, one of which is a server farm for cloud computing on the moon

Prof. Ran Ginosar of the Technion, who is also the president of Ramon Space, remembers well the first landing on the moon in July 1969. He was already in the 2th grade. He did not know at the time that a product that he participated in developing and building would fly to the moon, although the spacecraft would fail (which was not the computer's fault), but it would pave the way for the computers that came after it, the computers of the two Genesis XNUMX landers and even one day an entire data center outside the earth.

"Our computer is still on the moon. The computer that we sent to the Genesis 1 mission is a space computer of the type we have already built for many space missions and for the purpose of hardening it is tested with a lot of tests including an acceleration test of a lot of G (G - the force of gravity on the surface of the Earth). The moon's gravity is about one-sixth G and even though the spacecraft fell from a height of kilometers to the ground, it could not gain enough acceleration that it cannot withstand. "We are convinced that our component probably did not crash and it is still in good working order and those who can get there and use it can do so for free, there is no money", noted Prof. Ginosar with a smile.

Autonomous navigation of Genesis 2 landers

"At the same time, we intend to assist SpaceIL to ensure a more successful landing than that of Genesis 1 in the two landings they intend to land at different points on the moon. They intend to integrate into the landings a video-guided control system together with the Lulav company that was responsible for this in Genesis 1. We hope that they will again use a Ramon Spice card that contains our large parallel processor and knows how to do a great many calculations far beyond what is required to operate a camera or two to guide the Landing in the right place. In other words, the Lander is expected to be more autonomous than the Genesis 1.

Of course, we already have experience in image processing in video, for example in the lander we sent on top of one of the capsules sent from the Yabosa 2 spacecraft to the asteroid Ryogo two years ago. Our computer photographed the surface of the asteroid.

Another camera of ours has been circling Mars for five years and photographs Mars in stereoscopy and in color in the Exo Mars spacecraft - a project that was supposed to include both a rover and a lander, but the lander crashed.

Catch a hurricane at the moment of its formation

Closer to us, our computers are in the constellation of eight NASA research satellites in the CYGNSS project. The satellites were designed to investigate the source of the Horokines. They also contain electromagnetic sensors that pick up signal returns from navigation satellites (GPS and the like). For them every satellite looks like a point reflected on the water. If the point is clear, it means that the surface of the water is calm and there is no wind. A fuzzy spot means there is wind and its direction and speed can also be measured. In this way, they measure the wind speed in all areas of the world's oceans, and thus it will be possible to understand the first signs of the formation of a hurricane. The system is based on the large parallel computer thanks to the artificial intelligence capabilities. Although normal AI chips such as those from Nvidia or Intel can also be used in space, space agencies whose satellites are supposed to work in space for years must therefore have computers adapted to work in the harsh space conditions (radiation, heat).

They even recently published the issue at a conference, unfortunately without mentioning the name of the company, because it should be noted that it is not possible to sell to space agencies directly. NASA and the European Space Agency are obliged to spend the budget only within their continents. Those who buy the chips are private companies that won tenders and could not find them at home (Europe or America). In light of this limitation, we must excel especially in order for them to buy from us. By the way, this is acceptable, so does the Israeli Space Agency, which directs its R&D investments to Israeli companies.

There are other projects in progress, one of them together with the Italian company Thales - a demonstration of a monitoring tower service from space, the European Govsat project designed to help the rescue services in times of distress.

Data center on the moon

But if we return to the moon, which this week marks the 62nd anniversary of the first manned landing on it, and calls it Lunar Day, there are American and European plans (also Chinese AB) to settle in a belt of Hal stations that will surround the moon, and on the moon itself in the area near the south pole where the heat is less terrible During the daytime for the robotic vehicles, it will be possible to place solar collectors on the mountains where the sun shines most of the time, and mine ice from the perpetually shadowed craters nearby.

To operate even robots on the moon, let alone humans, would require enormous computing power. These robots will have a lot of sensors that will collect information. It is impossible to transmit all of it to Earth, so we must establish entire data centers - a lunar data center whose purpose is to process all the information close to the place where it was created, to keep the vital data and manage the robots autonomously. We hope that these data centers will use Ramon Spice's computers that have proven themselves, concludes Prof. Ginoser.

Astronauts will probably not reach the crash site of the Genesis in the next decades and maybe not in the next centuries, but according to Prof. Ginoser, if someone comes and wants to use a computer, as mentioned, they are welcome - you can't fly to the moon, but you can definitely be proud of the technology that was sent there.

More of the topic in Hayadan:

• The spacecraft is Japanese, its landing computer is Israeli
• Israeli computer in SpaceIL
• Ramon Space raised $17.5 million for supercomputer systems in space