Page 125 - Australian Defence Magazine November 2021

HENSOLDT Australia advances space domain awareness
Building sovereign industry capability
Tasmania’s position as a leader in Space Domain Awareness (SDA) continues to grow, as capability is further defined in object tracking. HENSOLDT Australia & New Zealand are working together with the University of Tasmania to assess and further develop radar detection of objects in space. The technology under development has the potential to enable an ‘always on’ piggyback – combined SDA/radio astronomy – system. This will enable the identification and tracking of or- biting objects and their relativity to space assets, like satellites, space stations and active space missions.
There are many thousands of objects in orbit around the Earth, all of them travelling at significant orbital velocity. Not only do they pose a significant risk to the safety of space as- sets, but collision between these objects can instigate a chain reaction, if the density of objects is sufficient. Knowing object location, through SDA technologies, helps to reduce that risk.
HENSOLDT Australia & New Zealand, the Tasmanian Department of State Growth and the University of Tasmania announced a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on SDA in July this year. The MOU supports the development of sovereign SDA capability through the Southern Guardian project, building on Tasmania’s significant advantages of southern location, research and Australia wide space-radar
assets. Each partner brings a unique advantage; HENSOLDT Australia is a global leader in space radar and C4ISREW technology, while the University of Tasmania manages an array of space radar infrastructure across Australia combined with significant expertise in space observation and track- ing. Though every state and territory is keen to grow space capabilities, Tasmania alone has the geographic advantage that allows it to observe and track objects in multiple orbit tracks in all of the key space operating bands including LEO, MEO, GEO and beyond. One of the unique benefits is that Tasmania can view objects sooner and before their angular dispersion spreads them across the sky. SDA data can then be rapidly processed and used for direct observations and tracking as well as cueing of next-sensor-in-chain and sensor fusion. With these advantages, the Tasmanian Government is seeking to attract domestic and international investment,
a skilled workforce, start-ups and national and international expertise to the State.
The team is building a sovereign capability to address the challenges of detecting and tracking objects in space and how to classify them. The enormous amount of data generated will be delivered as timely information, appropriate for decision making by Space Command or commercial operators keen to protect their assets.
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For further information, contact Mick Burgess, Head of Space, HENSOLDT Australia – michael.burgess@hensoldt.com.au