Exclusive to the Hedaan website: two exposures at the conference of the Israeli Association for Small Satellites

Two nano-satellites are being built at the IAA's Mabt plant that will demonstrate Israeli space technologies * First exposure to the Ramon Chips company that manufactures computers for satellites

Prof. Ran Gnoser from the Technion

There were two interesting revelations yesterday at the conference of the Israeli Association for Small Satellites that took place at the Air Force Base in Herzliya, in cooperation with Bat Halal, the Fisher Institute for Strategic Air and Space Research, Aquibit and the Israel Space Association.
For the first time it was revealed that the association will launch in 2008 from Russia at least one of the two nano-satellites currently being assembled at a subsidiary of the Aerospace Industry. These are tiny satellites measuring 10 x 10 x 30 centimeters from the CubeSat model manufactured by the American company Pumpkins. These satellites arrive equipped with a command computer and a system integration kit, when the customer, i.e. the association in our case, adds the satellites to it. According to Dodi Zusiman, one of the founders of the association for small satellites, he said at the conference that the satellites are now in the process of being integrated for launch on the Dnieper launcher from Russia at the end of 2008. The mission of the satellites will be to prove components for space, various organizations will assemble commercial components on the satellites and test their ability to work in the space environment.
The satellites are owned by the Association for Small Satellites in Israel (INSA), and they will include components including a tiny GPS from the Rocar company, a precise atomic clock from the Accubit company, and a mission computer developed by the Ramon Chips company. All the companies are Israeli, and the components are blue and white. In addition, the solar collectors are built in the aircraft industry. The steering control components and the electrical system are developed abroad.
The second disclosure is of the Ramon Chips company whose manager, Prof. Ran Ginosar from the Faculty of Electrical Engineering at the Technion says that the Ramon Chips company, named after the late Ilan Ramon, is an Israeli company (operating in Haifa), which was established to supply chips Radiation shields for satellites. "This is an activity that started five years ago as part of a research project at the Technion initiated by Mpaat in the Ministry of Defense with the aim of developing radiation shielding components for satellites in Israel. After the success of the research we founded the company. We design the chips, and the entire production is done at the Tower Semiconductor factories in Migdal Hamek. Our company is a design company (Fabless). Since then we have produced one component that is going to be integrated into the satellite in the coming days. Today we are developing several projects at the same time. In some cases it is about other components, not necessarily a computer - for example an image compression chip for the photography satellites and in addition to that, we developed in cooperation with a Swedish company a computer that can be used both as a main computer on the satellite and a computer to control satellite satellites. We recently finished production of its first version, which has been tested and works beautifully. The computer is based on SPARC - an architecture of a processor found in Sun's workstations, and it is used as a standard computer in the European satellites, and we hope that the aerospace industry and other satellite manufacturers will also adopt it as the standard computer."
What is your added value, if it is a standard processor?
Prof. Ginoser: "The processor is standard, but it is a System on a chip that includes some special I/O devices for the space beyond the basic computer, for example a BUS called 1553 intended for an aviation computer. Another BUS called CAN and special communication channels for space called SPACE WIRE, devices in ground systems are not required but in satellites they are important and greatly facilitate communications and satellite management.
All the chips we produce are resistant to radiation in space at any height and have very high reliability and are resistant to temperature changes, vibrations and more. Because these components are built according to the highest standards of reliability and therefore they are also suitable for military products and it is possible that in the future they will also be used for military products.
One of our goals is to be able to produce the products at cheap prices. It is not a problem to get reliable components today, the only question is the price and we are trying to enable customers to get them at cheaper prices, and with a greater development speed."
According to Ginosar, Ramon is a completely private company and has never raised external resources. It finances itself with the costs of the projects it wins. In this sense, it is an engineering center that provides engineering projects.
In any case, we did not turn to mass production, so we are not suitable for raising investment."
And how do you participate in the nanosatellite project?
"We offer, among other things, a nano satellite computer. Today, our satellite that the association purchased has a Texas Instrument computer which is actually a small controller, which in our humble opinion is too weak and not intended for work in space. As long as we are talking about experiments that can also fail, so be it, but if you want to build missions of hundreds of nano satellites that will have to last in space for years. Therefore we offer the computer to anyone who wants to develop a nano satellite in Israel. As for the satellites currently being built, we donated a computer to a Technion student project that will build a nano satellite card that contains our computer. The purpose of the card will be proof of capability, to show that our computer can be used in a nano-Lovain. In addition, anyone who would like to build a card for any tasks in satellites, for example a computer for the radio card, we will provide him with a computer. Since the development software is free, open and on the Internet, there is no problem to use our computers immediately as they are. We are always happy to help students develop a satellite. Any project like this, especially if it is accompanied by someone's contribution to the launch, helps the Israeli economy a lot, because it helps develop capacity."

Midad Farinta, spokesperson for the association and an engineer for the Amos 3 satellite system in Tel Aviv-Yafo, explains: "The association was established to push the field of nanosatellites in general and education about space issues in particular through practical projects. The beginning of the association's work was in 2004 and in 2006 it was officially established. The goal of the project at launch - proving components for space that will allow their future use for space projects of the State of Israel. This is the possibility of a technological breakthrough that will provide an answer to the gap created between the field of space in general and the technological developments of recent years. The whole subject of wireless communication, fast processors, security cameras, and MEMS components (tiny components made with fine mechanics that replace normal components such as gyroscopes, accelerometers). All the technological development of the last twenty years stopped and did not reach space. The project that Lun will break the glass ceiling and allow testing and proof of modern technologies for space systems, will bring space into the 21st century.
The State of Israel is the most ideal country for the development of nanosatellites that require creative thinking, high capabilities, and everything that the country has managed to lead in the field of ground applications, we have the capabilities to take them into space and make the country a leader in the field."