Because the space flight becomes more accessible and available, the history of human life in space is just beginning. Aurelia Institute wants to make sure that the future has benefited all humanity – in space or here on earth.
Founded by Ariel Ekblaw SM ’17, DR ’20; Danielle Delatte ’11; and former scientist MIT Research, Sana Sharma, Non -Profit Institute serves as a research laboratory for technology and cosmic architecture, the Center for Education and Scale and a political center devoted to inspiring more people to work in the space industry.
At the Aurelia Institute’s mission center, there is a commitment to make space available to all people. A huge part of this work includes annual micro -right flights, which, according to Ekblaw, are equal research missions, training of workforce and inspiration for enthusiasts of the next generation space.
“We did it every year,” says Ekblaw about flights. “We now have many kohorts of students that have been connected for years. We connect people from very different environments. We had artists, designers, architects, ethics, teachers and other flying with us. In our research and development, we are interested in cosmic infrastructure for public good. That is why we direct our technological ports towards the close, massive infrastructure infrastructure in low archivaking. on earth.
From annual flights to the self -organizing space architecture technology of the Institute known as Tesserae, a significant part of Aurelia’s work is an extension of projects that Ekblaw began as a myth graduate.
“My life trajectory has changed when I came to the myth,” says Ekblaw, who is still a researcher visiting myth. “I am extremely grateful for the education I got in the media laboratory and in the department of Aeronautics and Astronautics. The myth gave me skills, technology and community to be able to drink Aurelia and do something essential in the space industry on a scale.”
“The myth changes life”
Ekblaw was always passionate about space. As a student at the University of Yale, she took part in NASA microgravity flights as part of a research project. In the first year of her doctoral program in MIT, she led the Space Exploration Initiative initiative, effort many times to increase innovation at the limits of space exploration. The ongoing initiative began as a research group, but soon it collected enough money to carry out micro -right flights, and recently conducting missions at an international space station and moon.
“The media laboratory was like magic in the years when I was there,” says Ekblaw. “It had a feeling of what we called” anti -disciplinary deprivation of permission. ” You can get funds to discover really different and provocative ideas.
In 2016, during participating in the classes taught by Neri Oxman, and then a professor in the media laboratory, Ekblaw came up with the idea of the Tesserae project, in which the tiles autonomously self -organize themselves in the spherical structures of space.
“I was thinking about the future of the human flight, and the class was a moment of sowing for me,” says Ekblaw. “I realized that self -organization works OK on Earth, works particularly well in small scales, as in biology, but in general it fights with the strength of gravity when you reach larger objects. But microgravity in space was ideal for self -organization.”
This semester Ekblaw also took the class of Professor Neil Gershenfeld Mas. 863 (how to do (almost) anything) where she began to build prototypes. In the following years, her doctorate subsequent versions of the Tesserae system were tested on micrography flights run by Space Exploration Initiative, in a suborbital mission with Company Company Blue Origin, and in a 30-day mission on board an international space station.
“The myth changes life,” says Ekblaw. “This completely changed my life, giving me access to the real capabilities of space flights. Data from Kapsta for my doctor came from the international Station mission.”
After obtaining a doctorate in 2020, Ekblaw decided to ask two researchers from Mit Community and The Space Exploration Initiative, Danielle Delatte and Sana Sharma to cooperate with her to further develop research projects, as well as conducting space education and political efforts. This cooperation has changed into Aurelia.
“I wanted to scale the work, which I did with the initiative to explore the cosmos, in which we introduce students, introduce them to Zero-G flights, and then some finished the sub-Orbital, and ultimately flights to the international space station,” says Ekblaw. “What would it look like with myth and bring this opportunity to other students and people in the middle of their careers from various environments?”
Each year, Aurelia feels a micro -right flight, bringing about 25 people to conduct from 10 to 15 experiments. Until now, almost 200 people took part in flights in the initiative of the search for cosmos and Aurelia, and over 70 percent of these leaflets continued to operate in the space industry after flight.
Aurelia also offers Open Source classes for the design of research projects for microgravity environments and contributes to several educational activities and building the community in the academic environment, industry and art.
In addition to these educational efforts, Aurelia continues testing and improving the Tesserae system. In 2022, Tesseee was introduced to the first private mission at an international space station, where astronauts conducted tests around autonomous self -organization, dismantling and system stability. Aurelia will return to the International Space Station at the beginning of 2026 for further tests under the recent NASA grant.
The works have recently led Aurelia to transform the Tesserae project into a separate profit -oriented company. Ekblaw expects that there will be more spinoffs from Aurelia in the coming years.
Designing space and earth
Self -organization works are only one project in the Aurelia portfolio. Others focus on designing pavilions on a human scale and other habitats, including in a space garden and a massive, 20-meter dome depicting the interior of space architecture in the future. This space habitat pavilion has recently been distributed as part of a six -month exhibition at the Seattle Museum of Flight.
“Architectural works asks:” How do we intend to equip these systems and actually make habitats to live? ” – explains Ekblaw.
With all their work, Aurelia looks at the space as a test test to restore new technologies and ideas for our own planet.
“When you design something for rigors of space, you often hit really solid technologies for the earth,” he says.