Page 48 - Australian Defence Magazine Feb-Mar 2023

48 DEFENCE BUSINESS ADM SPACE SUMMIT
FEBRUARY-MARCH 2023 | WWW.AUSTRALIANDEFENCE.COM.AU
transmit huge quantities of intelligence data to the ground. At the time the conference was held, LMA, along with fellow presenters Airbus and Northrop Grumman, were expecting an imminent down-select for the aforemen- tioned JP 9102 program, which will see the Common- wealth acquire between two and four communications satellites, ground stations and supporting infrastructure to provide coverage from the central Indian Ocean out to the Solomon Islands from around 2027. Lockheed Martin’s offer drew on its US experience providing four out of five satellite communications systems for the US Space Force, including the Space Based Infrared System (SBIRS). Airbus based its offer for JP 9102 on the UK’s Skynet service, and Northrop Grumman has emphasised the work it is doing with partners including Inmarsat,
L3Harris, Vocus and others.
ENSURING SPACE SITUATIONAL AWARENESS
The importance of Space Domain Awareness (SDA) was touched upon by a number of speakers at the event, but Northrop Grumman’s Senior Technical Fellow and Mis- sion Architect Todd Wantuch shared some of the lessons he has learned over many years of work in the field.
“It's all about partnerships, it's about having the right geography, but it's also about really looking at what the data you need is and making the right investments, not just throwing things out there,” he said.
“It's not just about more sensors, it's about using the data smartly and bringing the right people into the process.”
While the terms Space Situational Awareness (SSA) and SDA are often used interchangeably, Wantuch described the difference as the former being a general topic and the latter as ‘where the rubber hits the road’.
other event from this new industry, but it's a risk,” he said. “Everyone needs to continue to be aware of it and we need to have the sensors – and this is also where govern- ments and commercial industry need to continue to work together to keep the domain as hospitable to everybody's
needs as possible.”
GROWING A LOCAL INDUSTRY
The final presentation of the morning session was delivered by Adam Gilmour, CEO of Gilmour Space Technologies who spoke about growing a sovereign space industry and the need to nurture local primes.
“There's been a lot of work in the last 12 months and a lot of discussions with the Federal Government about the con- cept of sovereignty. When I think about sovereignty, con- trol is important – if you’re Australian owned and Austra- lian controlled, you can make decisions quickly,” he said.
“If you're based in Australia, you're going to have an Aus- tralian supply chain. A really good example of that is we have over 300 suppliers in our supply chain; some of them make major components of our launch vehicle and I love to say when we go to space, 300 Australian companies go to space, and I think that's really powerful.
“Every single one of our employees is employed in Aus- tralia; every single one of them pays tax, every single one of them contributes to the Australian superannuation system. I think that's important: we export out of here, so anything we export is made in Australia.”
ECONOMIC BENEFITS AND SUSTAINABILITY
Kicking off the afternoon session, Airbus Director of Space Martin Rowse also spoke about the economic benefits of
sovereign space.
Leaving technology aside, Rowse noted
the two critical elements of a space capabil- ity are money and people.
“We've got some incredible capability in Australia, and I'm really passionate about en- suring that that translates into a sustainable space industry,” he told delegates.
“Australia is the twelfth largest economy in the world, but the 37th most sophisticated. Space captures the imagination, perhaps more than any other domain, but to move
He also drew the attention of delegates to the potential hazards of the Kessler Effect, which considers that once a critical mass of debris in space is reached, the chances of collisions occurring increases – creating exponentially more debris.
“AUSTRALIA IS THE
TWELFTH LARGEST ECONOMY IN THE WORLD, BUT THE 37TH MOST SOPHISTICATED”
“The Chinese Anti-Satellite Missile test
(in 2007) was a bad day,” he said. “It was
a game-changer, at least in Low Earth Or-
bit, where there was about a 20 per cent
increase in the overall amount of debris in
one fell swoop. Thank goodness nations are starting to look at these kinds of tests as unsustainable. This is not a way to proceed.”
from imagination to sustainable reality will require chang- es to that economy.”
This, he said, will require both the economy and the in- dustry to become more sophisticated.
“Our relationship with space has changed dramatically since the early days of space. It is now more diverse, more disruptive, more disordered, and more dangerous. And the structure has changed: we've gone from public ad- ministrators running the space industry and being the sole custodians of space – where in the 1950s and 1960s 93 per cent of all space launches were by the US and Russia – to now, where around 90 per cent of satellites launched are commercial rather than government owned and operated.” ■
Even without the testing of Anti-Satellite weapons, the rapid commercialisation of space has seen the launch of what Wantuch referred to as ‘mega constellations’ of satellites, which increases the risk of collisions occur- ring. As a result, he warned that commercial space traffic management companies need to work more closely with governments.
“I think most people would have predicted by now that these mega constellations would have already had some catastrophic event, and they haven’t. So at least from a world of Space Traffic Management we haven't seen yet an-