On Monday March 22, The “Adelis-SAMSON” (Space Autonomous Mission for Swarming and Geo-locating Nanosatellites) mission was successfully launched into space. The project was carried out by a committed and dedicated team at the Technion, led by Pini Gurfil of the Aerospace department and the Asher Space Research Institute (ASRI), whose current Director is Yoram Rozen (from Physics). This is the first launch of three Israeli satellites simultaneously.

The project was initiated in 2011 by Ehud Behar (Physics), when he managed the Asher Institute. At the time, a technical team was recruited to the institute, and the strategic collaboration with the Israeli space industries was established. The MBT-Space division of the Israeli Aerospace Industries (IAI) supplied the satellite bus(es). Rafael Ltd. designed and built the propulsion systems, and Elta (IAI) provided the geo-location payloads. A software engineering group was also recruited from Ort Braude, led by Alex Frid, who leads to this day on the space and ground software segments.

With the enthusiastic help of the then Executive Vice President for Research Oded Shmueli, and the then President of the Technion Peretz Lavie, the entire budget for the project was secured, as well as partial funding from the Israeli Space Agency. The construction of the satellites has since been led by system engineer Avner Kaidar with the institute's extensive and professional technical staff. At the beginning of 2015, and after completing the initial design, Ehud transferred the management of the Asher institute to Pini Gurfil, who brought it to a successful conclusion and launch on 22.3.2021.

"The ‘Adelis-SAMSON' project is a wonderful and exciting example of a successful combination of science and technology, and of the translation of innovative ideas into effective systems that contribute to humanity," said Technion President Prof. Uri Sivan. "Scientific and technological breakthroughs today require multidisciplinary research and close cooperation between academia and industry, and these are the elements that led the project to this important day. This is an exciting and formative moment for the Technion and for the State of Israel.”

Read more on the Techion website: https://www.technion.ac.il/en/2021/03/adelis-samson-technion-nanosatellites-in-space/.

To view the recording of the launch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GREwspcOspM.