Editor's Desk - Australia in Space Magazine, Issue 2, 2022

Editor's Desk, Chris Cubbage, Director & Executive Editor

"We’ve been involved in space for many years, a couple of decades, but our approach has been federated" -Air Marshall Mel Hupfeld, Royal Australian Air Force, Speaking at the Space Foundation's 37th Space Symposium, Colorado Springs, USA, 6 April 2022

The global space economy is worth US$447 billion at last count and climbing. Consequently, many nation-states, private enterprises, and individuals want in, including many in Australia. Kelli Kedis Ogborn, Vice President of Space Commerce and Entrepreneurship at the Space Foundation, confirmed at the 37th Space Symposium there is a lot of opportunity and upward trends within the future space economy and space commerce.

"We’re at this watershed, currently some of the most innovative minds are reimagining the space economy in terms of off Earth, global commerce sector," she said, and added, "this will benefit not only future space exploration but also scientific and technological development on Earth."

NASA’s Deputy Administrator Pam Melroy outlined the space agency’s goals and priorities in a wide-ranging speech to the Space Symposium. She said, "NASA is busier and more productive than ever chasing its overarching goal – to create a blueprint for a sustained human presence in and exploration of the solar system."

As the watershed unfolds, Australia is amidst the early revitalisation of the civil space sector and only just standing up its own military Space Command. Australia’s Air Marshall, Mel Hupfield, comments, quoted above, came just two weeks after Australia’s Defence Minister formally ‘stood up’ the Space Command. Defence Minister Peter Dutton announced at the Royal Australia Air Force’s Air and Space Power Conference in Canberra that the Space Command, headed by Air Vice Marshall Cath Roberts will be a "modest" version of similar space bodies set up by Australia’s allies. Space Command will draw upon personnel across the ADF, Australia’s Space Agency, the public and private sectors.

In this issue, Dr Malcom Davis writes on the Space Command and that this, “marks a huge step forward in Australia’s thinking about space as an operational environment. It marks an end to the traditional approach of past decades which saw a disparate and scattered management of individual space projects, and a perception of space capability almost as an afterthought, which was at best, simply an enabling capability provided by foreign and commercial partners.”

Also speaking at the Air and Space Power Conference was Boeing Defence Australia’s Chief Technology Officer, Hugh Webster. Mr Webster said Boeing’s in-house strategic intelligence report indicated that the capability gap between what Western defence forces need and what those forces have or are going to get is large.

"The cost to sustain increasingly more complex weapon systems is steadily growing. The pace of acquisition process reform is never going to solve that capability gap because the fundamental design addresses internal process contests rather than warfighter capability contests," said Boeing’s CTO. "Industry is concerned that without philosophical and actual reform and then acceleration, our forces will not be adequately able to deal with threats in the coming decades."

Australia will need to focus on its strengths. AROSE (Australian Remote Operations for Space and Earth), has created the Resources Advisory Board (RAB) and announced its high profile, industry-leading board members linked to the WA Mining sector. This announcement was soon followed by the Western Australian government committing $6.5 million to boost its space program in the upcoming State Budget. A majority of the funding will be supporting AROSE and $2.5 million committed to Curtin University’s Binar Space Program, the university’s first spacecraft, Binar-1. Launched into space on August 29, 2021, Binar-1 is currently orbiting 400 kilometres above Earth providing valuable information on spacecraft operation and performance.

We are also introducing the International Space Bridge Series, with a series of podcast and Australia in Space TV interviews. We speak with Professor Phil Bland, Director, Space Science and Technology Centre, Curtin University about the risky experiment Australia is undertaking in its funding of the national space industry. The level of investment Australia is making in space is unquestionably a good thing. But the great majority of it supports applied research and engineering, and commercialisation of outcomes. None of the new funding goes to basic research. Professor Bland highlights why this is missing out on extraordinary opportunities.

We also speak with Dr. Sarah Pearce, Director of the SKA-Low Telescope, soon to be built in Western Australia as part of the $2bn international SKA Observatory. Comprising up to 130,000 antennas spreading across 65km of desert, Dr Pearce explains the telescope will be more sensitive, and able to capture images at higher resolution and faster than ever before.

We are also very pleased to be the 'Official Media Partners' for The Andy Thomas Space Foundation's 14th Australian Space Forum, which will be held on Tuesday, 25 October 2022 at the Adelaide Convention Centre. Supported by the Australian Space Agency, the South Australian Space Industry Centre and SmartSat CRC, the Forum provides the perfect opportunity to stimulate ideas, share information about emerging technologies and network with influential space sector leaders and the broader community.

In this inaugural edition of the Australian in Space Magazine, we are proud to have contributions from Southern Launch, Austrade, Australian Strategic Policy Institute, KPMG, University of WA and Flinders University, along with coverage of the 13th Australian Space Forum, Royal Australia Air Force’s Air and Space Power Conference, Singapore Air Show and the most recent Space Foundation's 37th Space Symposium, USA.

Finally, we hope to see you in Sydney on May 11 for the UK-Australia Space Bridge Series Sundowner event with our community partner The Andy Thomas Space Foundation and sponsors Fugro SpAARC and AROSE. Look forward to seeing you there.

Enjoy the reading, listening and viewing and please get in touch if you want to contribute or support our next edition.