Page 39 - Australian Defence Magazine Sep 2021

SEPTEMBER 2021 | WWW.AUSTRALIANDEFENCE.COM.AU
SPACE 39 LEFT: The Eris three-stage launch vehicle will be
capable of taking small satellites into LEO.
“One satellite is so much harder to find amongst thou- sands of these things that are floating around,” Spencer said. “It’s a tree in a forest.”
If successful, DEWC Systems could pave the way for a tactically responsive space capability in Australia. Imagine, for example, an Australian warship on deployment in the Pacific with a sudden need to discreetly see over the hori- zon. It could order an Australian satellite to look down and provide unrivalled situational awareness.
“We’ve tried to design the orbits to create near-real-time assistance everywhere,” Spencer said. “And there’s other techniques the ADF could probably bring to bear, because the satellite will be connected to the system-of-systems.”
Currently, MOESS is in the third phase of develop- ment, which will place satellites in orbit to demonstrate the capability.
“There’s a global shortage of computer chips and com- ponents which has given us a bit of grief, but Phase 3 will get the satellites into orbit,” Spencer said. “They’ll passively sense radio frequency emissions and communicate in a net- work fashion. That allows us to do a lot
of classification and processing right at the edge of the sensor, so should something happen to the network and the signal to the other satellites is in- terrupted, each one will continue to work until it can communicate again. And Australian commanders will have priority tasking of this system.”
“EVERYTHING WE DO HELPS IMPROVE OUR USE OF THE ELECTROMAGNETIC SPECTRUM AND DEGRADES OPPONENTS’ USE”
of information. The answer is a constellation of satellites in Low Earth Orbit (LEO).
“A constellation of satellites is robust and resilient, so should you lose some nodes in that network, the network will still function,” Spencer said. “Everything we do helps improve our use of the electromagnetic spectrum and de- grades opponents’ use of the electromagnetic spectrum.
“That’s what electronic warfare is all about: using the same spectrum that we all need to communicate and see, but trying to be in control of that space, or at least under- stand what’s happening within it.”
According to Spencer, cost-effectiveness is the main advantage of placing a constellation of small satellites in LEO, although the orbital patterns are becoming more congested.
“In some orbits we can get better worldwide coverage than from a geostationary orbit,” Spencer said. “So that’s a great advantage, that ability to get it up there quickly and get the satellite wrapping around the world at 8km/second to see what it’s looking for.
“Obviously the downside is it’s a very congested area of space at the moment. There’s a risk that the satellites could be kinetically damaged or potentially jammed.”
However, congestion goes both ways. Whilst heavy traf- fic represents a risk to satellites in the constellation, it also allows them to hide from adversaries.
To get the satellites into space,
DEWC Systems is working with a
number of launch providers, including Southern Launch (with whom they launched Australia’s first space-capable rocket late last year) and Gilmour Space Technologies in Queensland.
“Australia is an ideal spot to do this,” Spencer said. “We’re large enough continentally that we can launch from say Queensland or the Northern Territory and access a lot of inclinations around the equator. We’ll be able to access polar and sun synchronous orbits, which are really good orbits for certain applications.”
Spencer’s ambitions, however, go far beyond this first sat- ellite network. He believes Australia is uniquely positioned to capitalise on the growing commercial space economy, as long as the government starts to recognise the opportunity.
“I speak to a lot of business leaders in the industry and in Defence and the appetite is really high. We have the abil- ity to show to the world that we’re building rockets here, we’re launching them here, we’ve got ground stations here, we’re managing it all here – that’s going to bring in a heap of overseas customers,” he said. “But it requires disruption. Sometimes it just takes a bunch of companies coming to- gether and stepping forward.
“Then the onus goes onto government then to explain why they don’t want to back you.”