Asher Space Research Institute

ASRI has served as a Technion base for satellite development, mission control, and cooperation with Israeli industry and academic partners. Its documented activities range from receiving scientific data from TechSat II to managing the three-satellite Adelis-SAMSON project.[1][2] Its researchers have also pursued the proposed Cool Earth climate demonstrator with international and commercial partners.[3] These projects encompass autonomous spacecraft control, geolocation, remote sensing, environmental monitoring, and space-based climate research.[2][5]

ASRI's roots in satellite development trace to the TechSat II program, a project that began as a student initiative at the Technion in the 1980s before evolving into a professional satellite program.[1] The effort took its later form following the arrival in Israel of scientists from the former Soviet Union, who brought additional expertise to the team.[1] TechSat II was launched into orbit in June 1998, helping make the Technion one of the few universities worldwide to have designed, built, and launched a satellite.[1]

The satellite was an 18-inch cube weighing 106 pounds and cost approximately $3.5 million to develop.[1] It generated power from sunlight and carried miniature cameras, computers, and locally manufactured space hardware for communications technology, remote sensing, astronomy, and geoscience.[1] A ground-monitoring station at ASRI received data from TechSat II, including regular measurements of atmospheric ozone gathered through the satellite's ultraviolet sensors.[1] Scientists also used its charged-particle detector to assess the frequency and potential effects of particle strikes on sensitive equipment, and they studied photographs recorded by its onboard camera.[1] TechSat II came within photographing distance of Earth approximately a dozen times per day.[1]

During this period, ASRI collaborated with Natan Kopeika of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev's Master's Degree Program in Electro-Optics on techniques for pointing, acquiring, and tracking laser beams accurately between satellites.[1] The work sought to advance satellite-to-satellite laser communications, which the source described as requiring less power and permitting lighter, smaller, and more precisely directed systems than conventional radio-wave links.[1]

Adelis-SAMSON was a major ASRI project that culminated in the 2021 launch of three Technion-built nanosatellites.[2] ASRI managed the project together with faculty members from the Technion's Aeronautics department.[2] Professor Pini Gurfil, a member of the Technion Faculty of Aerospace Engineering, headed the research team. Named participants included Avner Kaidar, Eviatar Edlerman, Dr. Alex Frid, and Hovik Agalarian, while many students and additional researchers participated over the course of the project.[6][5]

The mission was designed to operate three nanosatellites in autonomous formation for at least one year.[7] Each CubeSat—Adelis-SAMSON 1, 2, and 3—measured approximately 10 by 20 by 30 centimeters, roughly the size of a shoebox, and weighed around eight kilograms.[7][5] The satellites carried measuring instruments, antennas, computers, control systems, navigation devices, and communications equipment operating on three different frequencies.[5] They also used a krypton-gas propulsion system and solar panels that could function as aerodynamic control surfaces, allowing aspects of their flight to be controlled through atmospheric drag without expending fuel.[5]

A central technical feature was autonomous formation flight: the three craft were intended to coordinate their movements without continuous ground guidance.[5] Israel Aerospace Industries developed the mission receiver, while Technion researchers developed the flight-operation software and algorithms.[2][6] Each satellite carried Ramon.Space LEON processors, and a dedicated mission-control center was established at ASRI.[2][5]

The formation was designed to receive radio-frequency signals, including emergency-locator signals from ships, aircraft, and hikers, and calculate the position of the transmitting source.[2] Its proposed applications included search and rescue, remote sensing, and environmental monitoring.[2] Funding came from the Adelis Foundation, the Goldstein Foundation, the Israel Space Agency, the Ministry of Science and Technology, and Israeli space-technology companies.[2][6]

In March 2021, the three nanosatellites were launched aboard a Soyuz-2 rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.[2] The launch was reported as the first occasion on which three Israeli satellites were launched simultaneously.[8]

Cool Earth is a proposed technological demonstrator intended to examine whether space-based solar shading could counteract some effects of global warming.[3] Professor Yoram Rozen, identified as ASRI's head and a professor in the Technion's Faculty of Physics, developed the proposal with a team of academic and industry specialists.[4]

The full-scale concept calls for positioning a shade, or a series of modular shades, near the Sun-Earth L1 Lagrange point, approximately 1.5 million kilometers from Earth.[4] Rozen said the system would aim to block about 2% of incoming solar radiation and lower Earth's average temperature by approximately 1.5 degrees Celsius within about 18 months.[4] He described the full-scale shade as covering roughly 2.5 million square kilometers, an area comparable to Argentina.[4]

Before attempting such a structure, the team proposed sending a classroom-sized prototype into space. In June 2024, Rozen estimated that the prototype would cost approximately $15 million and could be launched three to four years after funding became available.[4] He said the broader design would limit reliance on engines by opening and closing a sail to make periodic positional corrections.[4]

The demonstrator was presented as an academic proof of technological feasibility rather than an operational or standalone climate solution.[9] Rozen also emphasized that any space-based intervention would need to coexist with continued reductions in greenhouse-gas emissions.[4]

In April 2024, INSS described Cool Earth as a collaboration involving ASRI, the UAE's National Space and Science Center, and ImageSat International, with an intended launch toward L1 by the end of the decade.[3] A June 2024 interview presented a less certain picture: Rozen said that the Emirati institution had stopped participating and responding after October 7, although he remained optimistic that cooperation might resume.[4] The available reporting therefore supports describing the international mission as proposed, rather than as a continuously active or funded launch program.

ASRI has been led by Technion faculty members from several scientific and engineering disciplines. Professor Pini Gurfil was identified as the institute's director in a January 2018 report and as its head in an August 2020 report.[7][6] He continued to lead Adelis-SAMSON as the mission approached its March 2021 launch.[10] Professor Yoram Rozen was subsequently identified as head of the institute in reporting about Cool Earth.[9][4] A 2025 Ynet report stated that Professor Yoav Shachner had recently become head of ASRI; it identified him as a professor in the Viterbi Faculty of Electrical and Computer Engineering and noted his 2018 ERC Synergy Grant for the CloudCT cloud-mapping project.[11]

The institute operates a mission-control center built for Adelis-SAMSON and designed to receive the satellites' signals.[8][5] Its projects have involved cooperation among Technion laboratories, outside companies, foundations, government agencies, and Israel Aerospace Industries.[2][6] Numerous students also participated in Adelis-SAMSON alongside the institute's researchers.[5]

An INSS policy analysis discussed the announced Cool Earth partnership as part of broader Israeli-Emirati space cooperation following the Abraham Accords.[3] It noted that Israeli and Emirati universities had promoted joint projects and information sharing, while the two countries also cooperated in analyzing data from the VENμS Earth-observation satellite and developing scientific instruments for Israel's Beresheet-2 mission.[3]

The INSS authors examined whether cooperation with the UAE could facilitate the transfer of advanced or dual-use Israeli space technologies to China.[3] The analysis reported that Israel did not regard such leakage as a serious risk. It also quoted Foreign Ministry legal official Keren Shachar as saying that the Defense Ministry supervises Israeli space-technology exports but that there is "no hermetic assurance that can prevent leakage."[3] These concerns represent a policy debate surrounding the announced partnership, rather than evidence that technology was transferred through the Cool Earth project.