Page 38 - Australian Defence Magazine Nov 2020
P. 38

                    38 SPACE LAUNCH
NOVEMBER 2020 | WWW.AUSTRALIANDEFENCE.COM.AU
 T-Minus Engineering, each weighing just 34 kg. Each car- ried to an altitude of 84 km, but not into orbit, a prototype radio frequency receiver developed by electronic warfare specialists DEWC Systems.
The payload was narrower than a 20 cent piece and only 27 cm long but survived up to 40Gs at launch and a de- scent initially at five times the speed of sound, protected by a ceramic heat shield and then slowed by a kevlar para- chute while continuing to transmit data to a purpose-built ground station.
interest, and a third launch site under active consideration. Woomera is restricted to military use.
While Southern Launch plans more sub-orbital launches at its own Koonibba test range, the company is now moving ahead towards orbital launches from Whaler’s Way at the tip of South Australia’s Eyre Peninsula.
Here it is finetuning plans for a multi-user launch com- plex with more than 6km of ocean frontage, that will offer a turn-key launch service to polar and sun-
  Future versions of the payload will be trialled in orbiting satellites as part of a $3.1 million de- fence contract for DEWC to advance its Minia- turised Orbital Electronic Warfare Sensor Sys- tem (MOESS) surveillance project for the RAAF.
This will involve a constellation of about 20 CubeSat miniature satellites equipped to de- tect and classify signals from radars and other emitters in defence-relevant radio frequency bands, providing an aerial picture of ship and aircraft movements.
“A FURTHER CONTENTIOUS ISSUE FOR INDUSTRY REMAINS THE POSSIBILITY OF RECOVERY BY THE COMMONWEALTH IN WHOLE OR IN PART OF LAUNCH APPLICATION ASSESSMENT COSTS.”
synchronous orbits.
In addition to providing the complete launch
infrastructure, Southern Launch says it will be able to undertake flight and range safety, vehicle design and avionics componentry, and assist with launch permissioning and other support services.
“We’ve got signed launch contracts to use the site; it’s not a pipe dream, this is a reality,” South- ern Launch’s CEO Lloyd Damp told ADM.
“The only thing now standing between us and successful orbital launches is state government development approval for the site – assessment guidelines for the environmental impact state- ment were released in August - and the ASA’s regulatory approval,” Damp disclosed to ADM.
A MOESS demonstrator CubeSat is cur-
rently scheduled for launch from Koonibba in
the first half of 2022, a far cry from the large
and expensive launches undertaken at Woomera during the 1950s and 1960s by the United Kingdom and the European Launcher Development Organisation (a precursor to the European Space ASA).
LOCAL LAUNCH INDUSTRY
The launch in 1967 of WRESAT atop a modified US Redstone rocket saw Australia became only the third nation to design and deploy its own orbital satellite. Four years’ lat- er the UK launched its Prospero X-3 satellite into low earth orbit from Woomera to study the effects of the space envi- ronment on communications satellites, and that remains Australia’s most recent satellite launch.
That hiatus is set to change, with construction im- minent on two space launch sites amid strong customer
Underlining market demand, more than 10 defence and commercial entities from Australia and abroad have already signed agreements to access the Koonibba and Whaler’s Way launch sites, Damp said.
“We’re hopeful Whaler’s Way construction will be com- pleted by next March/April and that we’ll have ASA approv- al for the first contracted launch later in 2021 at what will then be a world-leading rocket launch facility,” he stated.
NT LAUNCH SITE
Meanwhile the Arnhem Space Centre, nearing construction by Equatorial Launch Australia (ELA) at Nhulunbuy, near Gove in the NT, hopes to mark its completion by becoming the first privately-owned site outside the US to be used by NASA for rocket launches.
    ABOVE: There are still a number of regulatory issues to work through when it comes to local Australian launch.
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