Page 36 - Australian Defence Magazine Sep 2021

36 PASSIVE RADAR
SEPTEMBER 2021 | WWW.AUSTRALIANDEFENCE.COM.AU
invest in the research and development of further enhance- ments that we can bring into this space with the technology and we’ll continue to broaden its regional impact.”
at Silentium Defence’s recently-completed space observatory facility. The observatory is located in the Mid-Murray Coun- cil Area, on the edge of the 3,200 square kilometre River Murray Dark Sky Reserve and around 90 minutes’ drive from Adelaide. It has been developed in partnership with Western Sydney University’s International Centre for Neuromorphic Systems (ICNS) and the Swedish Space Corporation.
“In the last 12 months we have maintained an active de- velopment program on the S-series, which is really focussed on increasing the scale of the system, and with the scale comes sensitivity; as well as building our space observato- ry,” Palmer says. “The progress we’ve made in the last year to today has been really gratifying from a personal stand- point and I’m very proud of the team for all the efforts they have made to achieve it.”
The Maverick S-series is one of a range of complementary capabilities being proposed under JP9360, a project which combines two earlier programs (JP9351 and JP9352) into an incremental ‘system of systems’ multi-phenomenology approach to SDA, recognising the fact that no single sensor can fulfill all requirements.
“We have responded to the Request for Proposals (RFP) and we are awaiting feedback from Defence,” Palmer concludes. ■
BELOW: MAVERICK S-series passive radar deployed at the Silentium Defence Space Observatory in remote South Australia.
The sensor itself is capable of detecting any objects of interest within its field of regard, but the information re- ceived is filtered by software to present only information that is of interest to the users, which varies on a case-by-case basis. “We are building a flexible system that can be deployed in a variety of applica- tions, it is something that is con- figurable to meet the user’s needs,”
Palmer explains.
SPACE DOMAIN AWARENESS
The Maverick S-series is a much larger surveillance system designed to detect and track objects in LEO, which has also been developed with assistance from the DIH process and organisations such as the Australian Space Agency (ASA). It was successfully demonstrated at the Defence Science and Technology Group’s SpaceFest at Woomera in 2019 and again in 2020.
Silentium Defence was awarded a $3.2 million contract to advance, deploy and demonstrate the capabilities of the Maverick S-series system under Phase 2 of the DIH process in May 2020.
Palmer says development of the system has continued over the last 12 months and a definitive system is now installed
“THE PROGRESS WE’VE MADE IN THE LAST YEAR TO TODAY HAS BEEN REALLY GRATIFYING.”
SILENTIUM