Australia rejoins the space race (officially)
In case you missed it, today (14 May 2018) Senator Michaelia Cash announced an Australian Space Agency, to be headed up by former CSIRO boss Megan Clark AC for its first year.
This is a great opportunity for Australian businesses, startups and society as a whole.
It’s been in the pipeline for a while. There have been various state of space reports and there was a Review of Australia’s Space Industry Capability last year. We’ve also seen the Space Innovation Fund in South Australia announce funding for a space incubator, accelerator and space training scholarships and the Defence Innovation Hub priority 1 including space. So we have state, federal, military and civilian government interested in space. And so they should be.
we’re also seeing some exciting Australian companies in the er, Space space.
For anyone who thought that space was dead, think again. We’re also seeing exciting Australian companies in the er, Space space. Myriota are using low Earth orbit satellites for improved network coverage; Neumann Space are developing an Ion (we like that) engine; Fleet are putting up satellites for IoT applications; Gilmour Space Technology working on a low cost launch option; and Arlula creating a marketplace for assets in orbit. In Sydney Delta V Newspace Alliance is “Accelerating Australia’s Newspace ecosystem”. This is exciting. Very exciting.
Our CTO, Aaron, is excited by the potential opportunities this opens to the Australian Tech/Aerospace scene and prospect of the challenges in space. Not three words about the announcement left my mouth before he was babbling something about the convenient side effects of edge compute devices using radio and wifi signals that could be used for positioning through line-of-sight signal triangulation to form a Location Positioning System (there’s no GPS in space), to accompany the bio-metric data our synapse sensors gather, something that has been in the Ion labs for a while now.
I think it’s safe to say he is excited at the potential possibilities of working with the Australian Space Agency to improve situational awareness and build on what we have already learned here on the ground.
I have long wondered why we haven’t seen government backing of a space industry via an agency sooner. Before the myriad possibilities that modern technology enables and current crop of space businesses, I’ve always wondered why Australia hadn’t positioned itself as a launch location. It seems a no brainer given our size, (lack of) population density and large contiguous airspace (we control 11% of Earth’s airspace) and our experience managing restricted and prohibited space within that airspace. And we made a promising start. Back in the 50s-60s Australia was considered part of the space race, being the third country to launch a rocket from it’s own soil and being involved in international partnerships. There’s a great history of Australian involvement in Space over at The Conversation by Kerrie Dougherty, which is worth a read. This history may have left it’s mark though with what seems to be a concentration of activity in South Australia.
I’d love to see Ion Systems reach into space, it’s something that is very much part of my vision, which is why I was happy to see this in the AFR article by Tom McIlroy: “The review recommended Australia build on its strengths in communications technology, space services including situational awareness …”
Situational awareness is basically knowing what is going on around you. Sounds simple, but in occupations where it matters, it is the difference between life and death
As a team, this is very exciting for us as it aligns with our mission of improving the situational awareness of teams in hostile environments. For those who don’t know what situational awareness is, don’t feel bad, it’s not a term that get’s used much in civilian life. Situational awareness is basically knowing what is going on around you. Sounds simple, but in occupations where it matters, it is the difference between life and death: military, aviation, emergency services and space to name a handful. They need to be constantly aware of what is happening within and around their perceptual field. I spent time training (unsuccessfully — probably fortunately for the flying public) as an Air Traffic Controller — maintaining situational awareness can be very fatiguing.
As an entrepreneur who sees opportunity everywhere and is part of a team that strives for and will achieve greatness, I find it puzzling that so many people spend so much focusing on what a bad state we are in as a society. In a time when politics has descended to, well, politics, and social media is a competition to see who is the hardest-done-by. It’s heartening to see the government backing something aspirational.
Space is a topic that captures the imagination, drives innovation and unites us all. My 1.5 year old son loves the moon, every night he asks to go out and see it. And every time I look up with him, I think of how our ancestors back to the beginning of our species looked up at that near same sky. It can unite us as a society and give us common purpose while driving us forward and ensuring the survival of our species. So let’s get on board and 3, 2, 1, blast-off!
