CEBIT 2019: Exploring Australia’s Space Ecosystem

A panel of leaders from Australian space organisations discussed how their work is progressing and how this has downstream beneficial impacts for ordinary Australia’s at the 2019 CEBIT Australia event.

The Panel, moderated by Tim Parsons - Executive Director at Delta-V, included:

• Aude Vignelles – Executive Director at the Australian Space Agency
• Dr. Paul Scully-Power – NSW Space Industry Ambassador and former Shuttle astronaut
• Andreas Antoniades – Director of Saber Astronautics Australia
• William Crowe – CEO at High Earth Orbit Robotics
• Anastasia Volkova – CEO at FluroSat

The audience at CEBIT had the opportunity to raise questions in regards to Australia’s space ecosystem (both current and into the future) for the panel to respond to.

Australia’s involvement in space debris and traffic management was the first question to be asked of the panel, in particular, the roadmap for managing access and object tracking.

“As far as space traffic control goes, our mission control operation pulls in loads of data knowing where each [space] asset will be – allowing us to work collaboratively to avoid collisions in space,” said Antoniades from Saber Astronautics.

Aude Vignelles from the Australian Space Agency outlined how the issue of debris and traffic management is going to get bigger and more complex, especially with the launch of some global constellation programs which will see tens of thousands of satellites entering low-Earth orbit. However, she stated, the Australian Space Agency is building scalable and pro-active approaches into all future Australian launch and space asset programs.

Vignelles also discussed how the Australian Space Agency, and Australia in general, is at an advantage – relative to other agencies/nations due to our relatively new position. Our later start (after most global agencies) allows our industry and regulatory bodies to be more agile, and seek consultation with the market (start-ups, defense, primes, public, etc.) as it is today to build this regulation, she said, adding that other agencies around the world were looking to what Australia produced in this area.

The recent $150 million investment by the Australian Government into the Australian space industry was raised as a question.

Once again, Aude Vignelles from the Australian Space Agency described how the agency has developed strategies for this funding to flow into Australian businesses to assist NASA with the return to the Moon mission, titled Artemis.

Vignelles highlighted an example of how there are still many challenges left to resolve for Artemis, such as dealing with radiation, growing food or even mining in space – and that this is where the opportunity that Australian industries could harness – given our leading expertise in these fields.

On the topic of the capability of launching rockets from Australia, Dr. Paul Scully-Power took the opportunity to discuss how South Australia was in a unique geographic advantage in that it could launch rockets south over the south pole in a sun-synchronous orbit.

When asked about how data could be used to better the Australian agricultural industry, Anastasia Volkova from FluroSat detailed how positioning data accuracy would be improved drastically – and how this would open up a new field of technology for the farming industries and food production.

Volkova outlined an example of when we have excellent positioning accuracy – we will be able to use drones or robots to obtain data about weeds from space, and go and pluck those weeds out – removing the need for some pesticides usage.

Vignelles also added that the current space-to-Earth data transmission rates have reached a ceiling and that the space agency is investing resources into better understanding the capabilities of optical-based communication transmission using lasers instead of radio waves. “There is a lot of international interest in this project, and we’re looking into building optical transmission receiving stations around the country,” she said.

Lastly, the panel was asked about how to obtain young new talent into the Australian space industry. Responses from all panelists mentioned getting into STEM courses (e.g. coding), growing motivation and enthusiasm amongst young people, building immersive experiences and thinking laterally around how all industries and jobs could be related to space.