Defence Business Issue 41

28 SPACE RACE
November/December 2017/January 2018 Defence Business
Clock Ticking on Local Space 'Race'
By Philip Smart
November’s South Australian Space Forum included a presentation from
International Astronautical Congress (IAC) CEO Brett Biddington who checked off
his original list of goals for the recent 2017 congress held in Adelaide and asked the
200-strong crowd to assess whether the event was a “pass or fail”.
If audience applause from an assembly of industry participants was the
barometer the congress ticked all the boxes. But it was South Australian Space Industry
Centre director Nicola Sasanelli who echoed the thoughts of many while thanking
Biddington for his summary, which capped off an unprecedented 18 months in
Australia’s involvement in space.
“You’ve changed the culture in terms of space,” Sasanelli told Biddington. “The
outlook on the importance of space in Australia has completely changed.”
Few would argue the point. Australian industry has established solid reputations
in overseas space programs and products over decades while remaining virtually
unknown at home. But the IAC conference and its surrounding publicity have put
space firmly on the national radar, particularly with announcement of an Australian
National Space Agency on the first day of the event.
In the same week as the South Australian Space Forum, Lockheed Martin, the
Australian Strategic Policy Institute and the Space Industry Association of Australia
jointly hosted the Securing Australia’s Space Industry forum in Canberra. The forum
“addressed critical questions for the future of Australia’s National Space Agency and,
therefore, the wider space industry as a whole,” said Lockheed Martin Australia Chief
Executive, Vince Di Pietro.
The Committee for Economic Development of Australia (CEDA) held its own
event the day before South Australia’s with the ACT Government planning a space
forum for the following week. And the South Australian event followed release of
many of the 160 submissions made to the Commonwealth’s ongoing Review of
Australia’s Space Industry Capability, announced in July this year and scheduled to
provide an industry strategy to government in March 2018. The review is being led by
an Expert Reference Group (ERG), chaired by Dr Megan Clark AC.
The review has commissioned three major reports in to the Australian and global
space industries, received more than 1200 pages in submissions and consulted more
than 400 people, the majority in round-table discussion. It has highlighted the diversity
in the structure, focus and budget of international space programs. Of the 50 nations
with space budgets, nine of them have annual budgets of more than one billion
dollars, with another 20 sporting budgets of more than $100 million.
The review will inform Australian space policy and the charter of the newly
announced Australian Space Agency. And to no one’s surprise, it has identified
an Australian heritage in space and an industry comprising around 400 Australian
companies, as Joe Andrews, assistant manager of the Department of Industry,
Innovation and Science’s Civil Space and Cyber Security Industry Growth Division told
the Adelaide audience.
“A lot of attention was drawn to our network of ground stations, that Australia
is in a prime receiving and communications area of the world and we can extend those
services to other countries. It noted our expertise in precision navigation and timing
technologies and infrastructure, Andrews said. “Earth observation was seen as a great
strength for Australia, probably more on our ability to interpret earth observation data.
“And there are some frontier areas where we think we can go: artificial
Expedition 39 Launch. Photo Courtesy of NASA.