BIGGER IS NOT ALWAYS BETTER!

(Ynetnews) With the global commercial space economy in 2013 estimated by the OECD to be more than $250 billion, Israel is after a slice of the pie. Using the expertise of a defence industry that created technology such as the "Iron Dome" missile interceptor, Israel plans to move beyond its current focus on spy and military communications satellites into producing civilian devices, some small enough to fit in your hand. One project, Adelis-SAMSON, is designing three miniature, or nano, satellites for the first controlled formation flight in space. On a low-friction tabletop at the Technion institute in Israel's port city of Haifa, the navigation system is being tested in a cluster of round robots, the size of dinner plates, that weave in and out of formation like autonomous air hockey pucks. The launch is scheduled next year. While in orbit, digital receivers developed by a co-creator of the Iron Dome system will locate distress signals on earth, with the three satellites using triangulation to achieve pinpoint accuracy. "We call it maximising performance per kilo," said project head Pini Gurfil.