On Wednesday, a conference was held at the Air Force Base to mark the anniversary of Sputnik, organized by the Fisher Institute for Aviation and Space Research. First impressions
Assaf Agmon, CEO of the Fisher Institute, opened the event: "Years before the jubilee, no one thought that we would use various products from space extensively in our daily lives. The developers of Sputnik didn't think it was that important either - and the modest title in Pravda will testify.
"What started as a political rivalry between the USA and the Soviet Union created the space race that became a technological race with an economic impact. Sales in the field of space and government budgets in the field of space reached 180 billion dollars. The enormous contribution of the Soviet Union and its scientists to the advancement of humanity is becoming clear after many years. The Russian energy company that was supposed to send a representative to the conference could not do so due to the planned manned launch for these hours of a Soyuz spacecraft carrying 3 astronauts - an American, a Russian and a Malaysian. The company invited the IDF representative in Moscow and the Fisher Institute representative for the next manned launch. "
The Fisher Institute has set itself the goal of promoting the field of space. In this framework, we learned that many Jews who took part in the space program immigrated to Israel and some of them even participated in the Israeli space program. We call on the government to promote the field of space and allow an investment of 120 million square meters that will bring Israel to 5% of the huge space market. I hope that the determining factors will make use of the important resource - immigrants from the Commonwealth of Nations. Special thanks to the aerospace industry, Boeing, the Space Agency and the Vesti newspaper for helping us hold this conference.
In his concluding remarks, Agmon added that the Fisher Institute planted a tree on behalf of each of the veterans of the space program in the northern forests, as an aid to their rehabilitation, and each of the participants of the Soviet space program who came to the event received a certificate for planting the tree. According to Agmon, the planting of the trees is being done in response to one of the statements of the late Ilan Ramon when in one of his passes over Israel he said that he would like to see that next year there will be another million trees in Israel and it will be greener than space.
Minister Avigdor Lieberman: Star Wars indirectly caused the collapse of the Soviet Union
Minister Avigdor Lieberman. Photo: Leon Rosenblum
Former MK Maj. Gen. Mill, Eliezer Cohen (Cheetah). He introduced Minister Lieberman and then the Minister moved on to strategic matters and presented his memories as a child in the Soviet Union in the shadow of Sputnik. "As a child in the Soviet Union I will try to recreate the Sputnik era. 50 years ago when the Soviet Union surprised everyone and sent the first Sputnik, there was a scientist in the USA - the father of the hydrogen bomb who said it was a bigger defeat than Pearl Harbor. The competition in space was at the forefront of the competition between the two superpowers. The Russians, despite the hardships, understood that the development of space is the most important decision in human history. Whoever looked into why the Soviet Union collapsed - the space issue decided the whole world. What caused it was the Star Wars program that Reagan approved and the Soviet Union was unable to compete economically. Today there are three players - the USA, Russia and China, and the competition has its face here and there. There is no doubt that today the modern world cannot be seen without the development of space, communication systems] TV, telephony, GPS, the problem is that today space and nuclear power are in the hands of entities that are not states and that it is impossible Discuss with them rationally.
A word of thanks should be said to the person who founded the Israeli space program - Yuval Na'im for all the strategic insight that the man was blessed with."
Amber dew. Photo: Leon Rosenblum
The next lecturer was Tal Inbar, head of space at the Fisher Institute, who announced that he would soon start a project to document veterans of the Russian space program for future generations through high school students, some born in Israel, some born in the Commonwealth of Nations.
"The construction of the satellite cost several billion dollars according to today's values. I present here for the first time the birth certificate of Sputnik 8.8.55 - the order of the Council of Ministers to start working on the development of the first artificial satellite The Soviet Union announced during scientific conferences that it was planning to launch a satellite. The newly revealed documents show that the beginning was much earlier with the development of the R-7 family of launchers which is an old family on which Russia's most important launchers are based today. In 54 they started working on the launcher when the goal was not space exploration but the transfer of a nuclear warhead from the USSR to the USA in the event of a world war. At that time, American ballistic missile launchers were lighter, thanks to the miniaturization of bombs. A launcher launched the Israeli satellite Amos 2 and it has been used to launch cosmonauts for many years starting in 1961 - more advanced models but the core of the design from the sixties. And established the continuous presence of the human race in space in the absence of American ability to reach space.
Soon we will bring in detail all the new discoveries from Inbar's lecture.
The next lecturer was Professor Gerald Steinberg, head of the political science department at Bar Ilan University, holding a doctorate from Cornell University in the USA. His doctoral thesis dealt with the stabilizing role of satellites in the Cold War, and in his lecture at the conference (the transcript of which will be provided in the near future) he dealt with geo-strategic aspects of photography satellites in the USA and the USSR, and dealt a little with the security aspects of Google Earth software
The Technion satellite is approaching its tenth birthday
Dr. Fred Ordenberg shows the poster describing the Israeli space program. Photo: Leon Rosenblum
The next lecturer was Dr. Fred Ordenberg - he finished his studies at Moscow University and a doctor of physics from the Moscow Institute. Took part in the development of the Meteor, Resource and Electron satellites. Since 1994 he has been working at the Asher Institute, taking a central part in the development of the Technion satellite. Remote sensing expert, planning small satellites. 25 patents are registered in his name - Ofek sensor, Sun sensor and more. Ordenberg spoke in Russian, and we were helped by the simultaneous translation, which also served us for the last part - the panel of veterans of the Soviet Union's space program
"It seems to me that it is important to comment that today when I am given the opportunity to give a lecture in Russian, this fact alone is a tribute to the many achievements made by scientists in Russia, the word Sputnik came to space before satellite, so I will give the lecture in Russian."
"We thought that the lecture would be given by Prof. Moshe Gelman, but unfortunately he had to be abroad today, so I had the opportunity to speak to you here, and I think it has symbolic importance because I participated in the space project that I will be speaking about. Before I get to the project itself, I want to show you the poster that we prepared for today - we see the history of space exploration in Israel, satellite launches in Israel. In this poster you see a number of satellites - communication satellites and satellites for space exploration, the beginning was with the Ofek launch in '88. Then the plans that have already ended and up the projects that are still ongoing.
One of the first failures is a satellite that I wanted to talk about and precisely the second version of that satellite - Taxat - is still in space.
The Asher Space Research Institute, which works under the auspices of the Technion, was founded in 1984 and it was not easy to start space research. We know we have a number of problems besides space exploration. Also to establish a center - the decision was not easy, but they wanted to use the potential of the immigration of those years, ex-Soviet Union scientists, engineers and technicians, and this also made it possible to make a contribution to space research in Israel.
The first project we did within the institute was the Taxat satellite - a strategy for the development of the project in our institute, we operated mainly in the satellite field - also the optical devices related to this satellite, also a connection in the laser field. Later we received a number of new engineers and scientists from the United Arab Emirates and today they form an important group developing electric motors and also continue to work in connection with special equipment for high resolution. They also work with the students in many space exploration programs.
The launch failed and this satellite fell into the sea. Despite this, the appetite for the development of the satellite did not wane and our group, in which about 50% were veterans of the former Soviet Union, continued to work and developed the second version of the satellite that was finally launched in 1998.
The weight of the satellite is about 50 kg and the launch was from Baikonur in Kazakhstan. It was an international program, there was a Russian satellite called Resource that was connected to a Zenit missile and to it were connected 5 small satellites from Germany, Thailand, Australia and Chile as well as the Israeli satellite. They separated from the big satellite only in space. Even today, all these satellites continue to orbit the Earth, but except for Taxat, most of them have finished their activities and their instruments have gone silent. The Technion satellite continues in its orbit for 9 years and continues to operate with full vigor. Our team has been responsible for nine years to support the connection with the satellite, manage it and carry out research, this is not an easy task at all that required software development as well as fast data processing. So far, the satellite has made more than 50 laps - a rate of 14 laps a day, and at least twice a day it makes contact with the country. The battery receives energy from the sun, the satellite is shaped like a cube with solar panels on four sides. In addition to the fact that the launch was carried out from Russia, the solar batteries were also created in Russia.
One of the studies we carry out is a continuous measurement of the power of the batteries and it turns out that despite everything they are getting weaker and weaker and within a year or two the satellite will have enough to operate because it will not receive enough energy. We also measure the temperature the satellite is exposed to and it turns out the temperature was quite stable. In addition to these experiments, six scientific experiments were carried out and it should be remembered that not every tiny satellite is capable of such a complex scientific program. There is equipment there for observations, we developed a sensor for the telescope and we also developed new materials that are required for modern filters, another sensor for the study of radiation and atmospheric ozone.
Taxat is the flagship of microsatellite construction and by all accounts is the most successful tiny satellite in history.
The tiny satellites are a very important field, it is a symbol of technological progress. With their help, we try all the latest technological developments, and see the developments of those groups. In the last year, each student participates in a group that designs some kind of space vehicle and they learn to cooperate and coordinate research directions among themselves. These are important studies and the results are published in many conferences around the world. Dr. Gelman wanted to point out that the activity results in many publications in the leading international magazines and we see this as an important contribution to space exploration in Israel.
In addition, we carried out a number of projects that we carried out with school students from Kiryat Bialik as part of the Columbia shuttle, we also have a center to commemorate the memory of the Israeli astronaut Ramon. And in conclusion, I would like to mention again that both the lecturers and the students are for the most part ex-Soviet Union and we work closely with the institute's advisors. Since we are celebrating an anniversary today - next year it will be 20 years since the launch of the first Israeli satellite, and if the Technion satellite survives another year we will celebrate its 10th anniversary. We need to focus our efforts on future activity. I believe that the people who work for us at the institute are part of the developers of the future space programs."
Tomorrow we will bring you impressions from a panel with the participation of veterans of the Soviet Union's space program, which was also held as part of the Sputnik jubilee celebrations at the Fisher Institute.
