AROSE is helping take Australia’s remote mining capabilities into space

By Andrew Curran, Correspondent, MySecurity Media

The Western Australia mining sector has a longstanding reputation for being at the forefront of remote mining technologies. Big-name miners like Fortescue, BHP, Rio Tinto, and Newmont have invested heavily in automated machinery and remote-controlled processes.

Now the push is on to transfer Western Australia's remote mining capabilities to space, with widespread acknowledgement Australia's expertise in this area could give the country a crucial edge in the space sector.

In 2018, the Australian Government established the Australian Space Agency (ASA) to manage and guide Australia's growing involvement in the space sector.

Right away, the ASA identified the robotics and automation capacities that existed in the mining and resources sectors as a valuable capability many other countries vying to compete in the space sector lack.

Australia isn't new to the space sector. South Australia's Woomera Rocket Range was a busy place in the 1950s and 1960s. During those two decades, with the Cold War in full swing, Woomera was the second busiest rocket range in the world after Cape Canaveral.

But in later decades, Australia's interest and involvement in the space sector waned. It is only more recently, as space became increasingly commercialised and subject to growing military interest, that Australia officially began to get involved again.

On the back of that renewed commercial, defence, and government interest, and with local space startups popping up like mushrooms, the Australian Government set up the ASA. The space agency quickly confirmed that remote mining technology was Australia's ticket into the space sector.

The potential to transfer remote mining technology to space wasn't going unnoticed in Western Australia either. In 2020, with funding from the Western Australian Department of Jobs, Tourism, Science and Innovation, a Perth-based not-for-profit consortium called AROSE, or Australian Remote Operations in Space and on Earth, was formed.

Michelle Keegan, Program Director at AROSE, says Australia's remote operations expertise at the time was strong, and the not-for-profit was set up to create a group that pulled together and leveraged that expertise to take it into space. She says forming around the same time the ASA was established was a case of good timing. However, the ASA also being on the same wavelength regarding remote operations capabilities in Australia's own backyard was even more fortuitous. "Until you're in the space sector, it isn't until you really become aware of the amazing (remote operations) capability that just sits here… It is a new industry but growing quite rapidly, and a great space," Ms Keegan says.

The ASA says “Australia is a world leader in remote asset management in industries including mining, oil and gas, transport, agriculture, and fisheries. Australia can leverage its expertise in robotics technology and systems for remote operation and exploration in Space.”

Like many other people now working on remote operations in the space sector in Western Australia, Michelle Keegan has a mining background, most recently the Program Director for Technology Development at South32. "The work I did there really did start to scan the globe around both thought leadership and current technologies to build into those operations," she says. Ms Keegan adds that when you look at the challenges facing remote mining operations through a space lens, the challenges become far more complex. It means you need to look at new ways of doing things and solving problems. For AROSE, the way forward is collaboration and co-opting the skills and expertise in Western Australia.

Founding partners at AROSE include Nova, Woodside, Curtin University, the University of Western Australia, Western Australia's Department of Jobs, Tourism, Science, and Innovation, and Fugro.

One early result was AROSE collaborating with Curtin's Space Science and Technology Centre on the Binar Space Program which is developing five CubeSats, the first of which launched last August as part of the SpaceX CRS-23 commercial resupply mission to the International Space Station. "AROSE brings together the best of Australian industry with the most advanced technology and leading WA scientists, on a project that has got deliverables in the economy and in research," says Professor Phil Bland, Director of Curtin's Space Science and Technology Centre. "We can leverage industry expertise in Australia to take remote operations into space and deliver solutions that benefit the Australia–NASA Moon-to-Mars program."

Participation in NASA's Artemis Moon-to-Mars program is the medium-term holy grail for many participants in Australia's space sector. The Australian Government has sealed a deal with NASA to build a semi-autonomous rover here that will hitch a ride to the Moon in 2026 to collect lunar soil (regolith). NASA wants to extract oxygen from the regolith to support a sustainable human presence on the Moon.

For the Australian space sector, it is a chance to show off its undisputed skills and experience in remote operations and autonomous systems. To this end, in 2021, AROSE received a funding boost from the ASA to develop a feasibility study for a remotely operated construction rover. "A rover on the moon needs to do as much as it can in an automated way," says Michelle Keegan. "We can't go fixing something if it breaks. We can't be there in the same way as we could be in the Pilbara."

That 2021 funding facilitated research that led AROSE recently submitting a formal tender to the ASA to be part of the Trailblazer program. Trailblazer is making $50 million Federal Funding available for Australian businesses and researchers to help develop the rover. "The Trailblazer program starts with the goal of taking people back to the Moon, and there are a number of things that are necessary to enable that sustained presence, and a number of those elements can be supported by the capability that we already have in Australia," AROSE's Program Director adds.

Following the submission of that tender, AROSE recently formed a Resources Advisory Board to support the delivery of the mission of AROSE, to take Australia's remote operations expertise to space and optimise the learnings for terrestrial applications. Enrico Palermo, head of the ASA, says Australians should be proud of and excited about the local space sector taking part in the Moon-to-Mars project. "You can't help to be inspired and get excited about the possibilities."