The new observatory and satellites currently being built on the roof of the Shenkar building will become one of the most sophisticated laboratories in the world, enabling, among other things, advanced communication with satellites and other spacecraft.
Those who want to know where the receivers are directed at the International Space Station or how is the nano-satellite of Tel Aviv University, TAUSAT1, Which has been orbiting the Earth for nearly a year, will very soon be able to see it with his own eyes. A new and state-of-the-art optical ground station, which can, among other things, provide a glimpse of the very small details that occur very high above us, is currently being built on the roof of the Shenkar School of Physics and Astronomy at the Raymond and Beverly Sackler Faculty of Exact Sciences.
And what else will it be used for? It will mostly track nano-satellites and relatively close-up celestial bodies, but also stars that are millions of light-years away. Later on, the station will serve as a tool for quantum encryption through space, one that will allow us to best encrypt any type of information without being able to break into it, and gather important scientific information. Just before the most sophisticated telescope in the country begins to work with us, we caught Prof. Yaron Oz, head of the Quantum Center, Prof. Haim Suchowski from the School of Physics and Astronomy and Michael Zukran, an international star photographer and who will operate the new station, for a light conversation on quantum optical communication, photography Space and unplanned dating that led to groundbreaking projects.
We’ll start from the roof and go downstairs
Prof. Chaim Suchowski engages in basic and applied research in the field of broad research of the interaction between light and matter. “My research lab is mainly concerned with nano-photonics, super-fast dynamics and the non-linear interaction of light with various materials in nature. A combination of all these things together, “he explains.
“If once the field of space once ‘belonged’ exclusively to NASA and to very specific bodies, such as the aerospace industry in our country – today even high school students send satellites into space,” Sukowski explains. The Revolutionnew space That allows private companies to send relatively reasonable cost nano-satellites into space has changed our lives, and in the last 15 years universities have been doing the same.
The satellite nano TAUSAT1, Which was characterized and built here on campus under the leadership of Dr. Meir Ariel, Prof. Ofer Amrani from the Ivy Walder Fleischman Faculty of Engineering and Prof. Colin Price from the Porter School of Environmental and Earth Sciences, routinely from Tel Aviv University about a year ago. Prof. Suchowski tells “One of the next projects we want to do is to create optical communications through space, and later quantum optical communications through space, which is a new and evolving field in itself.”
Encryption of information from space
Information encryption is an important issue with many applied meanings and quantum mechanics is changing the rules of the game in this regard. “Today we encrypt our information based on the complexity of complex mathematical problems, and assume that computers take a long time to solve these problems and therefore the encrypted information is protected,” explains Prof. Yaron Oz, head of the Tel Aviv Quantum Center. “Quantum computers are based on a different computational paradigm and can change the picture. For example, the problem of decomposing an integer into its primary factors, the complexity of which protects widely used encryption algorithms, will be quickly solved by a quantum computer.” Protected encryption in the age of quantum computing. ”
“On the other hand, quantum systems have exceptional encrypted data transfer capabilities due to the fact that quantum mechanics does not allow information to be copied, and any attempt to copy or modify it destroys the original information. This means that a quantum communication line is completely secure against eavesdropping. Absolutely, and indeed quantum optical encryption already exists using fiber optics, ”he says.
It turns out that this encryption is possible, but limited to a distance of 150-200 km. “This means that if we want to encrypt a quantum communications network from Tel Aviv to Haifa it is possible, but we will not be able to transfer encrypted information from here to Eilat.” Financials in Switzerland are already aided by such communication networks, but the transfer of information between continents, for example from New York to London in this way is not possible.We will have to trust him in this matter.
Prof. Oz says that the first to encrypt information on a satellite quantum communications network were the Chinese, about four years ago, and this, as expected, caused a great deal of controversy around the world, especially in the United States and Europe. And the researcher. “Our new laboratory with the telescope on the roof is about to take part in the future satellite project of the Center for Nano-Satellites.”
The new observatory is going to be very professional, accurate and sophisticated. With the help of various bodies at the university, and especially with the support of the Quantum Center and the support of Prof. Erez Etzion, head of the School of Physics and Astronomy, the budget and space was raised to build the observatory and buy the massive equipment. It is an accurate and huge robot with a telescope with a 24-inch mirror, which can track stars, galaxies, nebulae and other bodies. The robot, which weighs 300 kg, can move at an angular speed of up to 50 degrees per second and accurately track moving satellites at low altitudes, as well as lower aircraft. We will be the only ones in the country with such equipment, “promises Prof. Suchowski.
The Librarian of the Stars
At this point, and quite by chance, another actor came into the picture, who helped Prof. Suchowski leverage the idea into practice: Michael Zukran, a world expert in astronomical and satellite photography and a consultant in building a research observatory.
“As a veteran star photographer, I wanted to challenge myself and photograph the International Space Station. I needed an open roof, which would be close to the space station’s orbit as it passes over the skies of Israel. And I just asked if it could be done here.” Michael arrived with his personal equipment and took one of the detailed photos taken from Earth of the space station. It will be recalled that during the filming, the space station flew at a speed of close to 28,000 km / h.
Michael’s specialty is to calibrate and control the sophisticated robot, monitor the satellites and photograph them at the request of the researchers. With the new equipment, he promises he intends to document satellites as have never been observed from Earth.
Prof. Adi Arieh from the Faculty of Engineering and doctoral students Dolev Bashi, Georgi Gary Rosenman, Yonatan Piatecki, Sahar Shahaf, Tomer Nahum and Yuval Reches are also working on the establishment of the technological system for laboratory quantum optical communication.
Prof. Suchowski estimates that in the future there will be all kinds of industries, security and other, that will be happy to use the new platform, including other universities. “This is a national resource. Some of the knowledge learned about the system is shared by other academic institutions, such as the Hebrew University, which, led by Prof. Hagai Eisenberg and Prof. Yaron Bromberg, established the national demonstrations of a fiber-based quantum communication system and has recently completed a ground station. “Mobile optics. I believe that all of this can be used by us to promote applied and basic research in the State of Israel and in the world,” he concludes.