The Australian Space Agency is seeking input from businesses and organisations interested in using space technologies or contributing to the sector.
The input will be gathered through a series of consultations in state capitals over the coming weeks.
The space agency’s goal is to “grow a globally respected space industry” and to use space as a vehicle to boost the wider economy. In other words, it is a front door - a policy arm of government that will engage Australian industry.
The consultations’ focus is an insight into how the agency is approaching its goal. In a statement, the agency said it is “keen to explore” opportunities in the following priority areas:
- Earth Observation (EO)
- Positioning, Navigation and Timing (PNT)
- Space Situational Awareness (SSA)
- Communications Technology
- Robotics and Automation
- R&D
- Areas of competitive advantage which Australia can leapfrog into.
The consultations are scheduled to occur through state capitals on a rolling basis in the second half of August, beginning with the ACT on August 13 (the full schedule is available here).
The call for business input comes as British analysts predict a huge increase in the demand for small satellites over coming years.
Frost & Sullivan expect launch demand to increase to 11,740 small-satellites by 2030 with revenues reaching $70.10 billion.
“Small-satellites are the focus of changing space industry dynamics with current rideshare capacity insufficient to meet future small-satellite launch demand,” said Vivek Suresh Prasad, Space Industry Principle Aerospace and Defence.
“Existing players such as Airbus, Eutelsat and Thales Alenia are investing in small-satellite businesses to develop their systems and infrastructure and harness lucrative, future, low-cost small-satellite services.”
The analysts argue that significant opportunities will be created by high-volume subsystem demand, on-demand launch services for small-satellites, capacity expansion of global ground station services, and simplified standard platforms for downstream services.
As ADM has reported previously, a number of Australian players – including Adelaide-based start-up Myriota – are already heavily involved in that space.
Australia is, it seems, already leapfrogging ahead.