While many believe Adelaide’s hosting of the 68th International Astronautics Congress in September put Australia “on the map” in space, the Australian space industry is more happy about how it put space on the map in the minds of Australians.
By the time the Congress drew to a close with presentations by SpaceX entrepreneur Elon Musk and Mars mission announcements by Lockheed Martin on September 29, Australia had a National Space Agency and its first government minister with ‘space’ in their title, courtesy of South Australia’s Minister for Defence and Space Industries, Martin Hamilton-Smith.
The Congress is an annual event, held jointly by International Astronautical Federation, International Academy of Astronautics and the International Institute of Space Law. It is where representatives of international space agencies and industry provide updates on major programs, present research and issues and network.
Alongside the Elon Musks and Andy Thomas’s of the space industry, specialists present papers on technical subjects from human factors and valve design to space law and the challenges of feeding a colony on Mars.
While Australia’s 4,500 delegate registration was short of Mexico’s record of 5,500 in 2016, it was around 50 per cent higher than the average 3,000 attending most annual events. And the Congress is also designed to spill out in to the surrounding city: in Adelaide more than 700 school children visited the interactive exhibition on excursion and more than 3,500 visitors attended the public session of the exhibition on Friday morning, while exhibits in the nearby State Library and South Australian Museum doubled normal daily visitor traffic, in some cases to more than 10,000.
Michael Davis is Chair of the Space Industry Association of Australia and of the IAC 2017 Australian organising body. He believes the Congress created a momentum around space that has produced practical results in investment and understanding that this is an industry in which Australia is already a player.
"For me the greatest satisfaction came from the real progress we have made as a national industry in such a short time, in new projects with new investment, contributing to the economic and technological growth of this country," Davis said to ADM. "The SIAA played a key role in winning the bid for the Congress and then, with others in the Australian space community, formulating and sticking to a strategy that was intended to produce enduring benefits for our sector. This was achieved through a shared vision and a lot of work by a large number of talented colleagues."
Announcements
As if to underline the growing momentum, the congress hosted a raft of industry announcements, with the South Australian Government flagging potential launch testing and space qualification missions through its SA Space Innovation Complex.
Adelaide space start up Fleet announced a partnership with French space agency CNES to track and support Fleet’s future nanosatellite fleet, while local company Inovor signed a letter of intent with Italy’s largest privately owned space company SITAEL to establish a joint company to develop and integrate satellites and space mission concepts.
Boeing announced at IAC2017 that Virtual Reality technology developed in Brisbane would be used to provide high-resolution interactive simulation for the CST-100 Starliner, a seven-person low earth orbit capsule being developed for NASA’s Commercial Crew Program. Boeing has signed an agreement with Melbourne VR supplier Opaque Space to collaborate on future virtual reality space training scenarios, including docking with the International Space Station, for the Starliner.
And Lockheed Martin announced partnerships with the University of Sydney on developing photonic-based filters for microwave Radio Frequency (RF) signal processing, and with RMIT on advances in metallic additive manufacturing processes and materials, particularly for high-strength lightweight alloys that have significant implications for aerospace applications.
The University of South Australia, the International Space University and the Government of South Australia signed a Memorandum of Intent which includes implementing the yearly Southern Hemisphere Space Studies Program, a study for the development of short courses in the field of space entrepreneurship and a study for the creation of a joint Institute in Adelaide to pursue activities in the space field.
Under the terms of a new agreement signed at IAC, the CSIRO will for the first time direct the British NovaStar satellite’s activity over Australia, downloading and processing data, and making data available to researchers in a $10.45 million three-year deal.
Space Agency
While the Australian National Space Agency was announced to thunderous applause on the first day of the astronautical congress, its form is yet to be shaped. But the agency’s three major initial functions will be to coordinate international enquiries to Australian industry, present a unified face in representing Australia in international space events and organisations, and educate Australians about the industry and career opportunities in space. But it’s not about reinventing NASA and it’s not about creating an industry from scratch: that already exits.
Australia already has around 60 companies directly involved in space and an international reputation for advanced research in fields such as plasma thrusters, satellite communications and hypersonic flight. Companies offer services from onboard computing and navigation services to insurance and project management. And that, according to Michael Davis, illustrates the point that the most visible elements of a space program are just the tip of the iceberg. Australia doesn’t need a NASA-style national space program to have a national space industry.
“When people think about space they usually think about engineers and astronauts, the people who build and fly spacecraft,” he said. “But a project as large and as complicated as a space program needs specialists in a range of fields, from project management to accounting, law, communications, imaging and education.”
For Rod Drury, director of strategy for Lockheed Martin’s space business in Australia, the ideal National Space Agency will be less about planning manned missions to Mars and more about providing coordination for local industry already involved in providing the products and services needed by an international space industry worth around $420 billion per year and growing at around 10 per cent per annum. He points out that Lockheed Martin’s Australian space activities already turn over $20 million per year.
“People always used to associate a space agency with a NASA model and the appropriate funding that went with it,” he told ADM. “We certainly don’t see it that way. It’s the government’s right to decide how they want this model to work. But what we’ve said is that there are significant benefits by having effectively a single point of contact.”
Drury believes a clear contact chain will not only make clear the capabilities of Australia’s space industry, but also determine who can speak on its behalf.
“Well intended people, time after time would turn up to conferences representing Australia, but the messages were often different,” he said. “Now these were well intended people, but sometimes they weren’t fully informed.
“But the issue from the other side was I’d also have country representatives asking who they talk to in Australia. And so to me we really see the space agency potentially as being that corralling point, in time hopefully coming up with a united national vision, a united national strategy.”
But with a fundamental shift in space services from Government to commercial operation, he doesn’t see Australia building, or needing, another NASA.
“The reality is that government originally funded and led the way with space and space agencies. But now in a number of areas it’s the commercial market that’s driving the direction of technology. Governments buy a certain number of satellites and systems, but the commercial industry buys a lot more.”
Value proposition
Recent research would tend to agree. South Australia’s government defence arm Defence SA recently commissioned a research paper on the Societal and Economic Benefits of a Dedicated National Space Agency for Australia.
The report, focusing on the space industries of the UK and Canada, concluded that international experience shows space agencies deliver value by providing a central point for academia, industry, defence and foreign entities to collaborate among themselves and with government and to coordinate the flow of knowledge and capital.
“In space-faring countries the National space agency is a body responsible for all strategic decisions for its national civil space program, providing a clear single voice for national space ambitions,” the report stated. “It also helps create the best context, domestically and internationally, for exploring and benefitting from space, allowing for central coordination and administration of all space-related activities, budgets, and plans.
“If Australia is able to replicate the performance of the UK space economy over the first eight years following the establishment of the UK Space Agency, it is possible to extrapolate that over a similar time frame, there would be an absolute improvement of about A$5.3 billion (132 per cent increase on current figures) and an increase in direct employment in the sector of about 11,700 jobs (102 per cent increase on current figures). These calculations are based on conservative assumptions.”
But while these numbers suggest Australia would do well to look at the UK and Canadian models, Rod Drury insists that any structure must encourage the entrepreneurial approach that has led more than 60 Australian companies in to the space industry in the first place, without a concerted approach from Government.
“We don’t want to lose that larrikin innovative spirit,” he said. “So we kind of want a framework, but we don’t want it to be too constraining.”
This article first appeared in the November 2017 edition of ADM.