Fugro's Space Systems Director, Dawn McIntosh

USA to Australia, End-to-End Testing - An interview with Fugro's Space Systems Director, Dawn McIntosh

By Andrew Curran MySecurity Media

NASA is taking another step in its ambitious Artemis program with the imminent launch of the Space Launch System moon rocket. Artemis 1 will spend 42 days in space, orbiting the moon, before returning to Earth for an ocean splashdown. Among the people keeping a keen eye on the mission is Fugro SpAARC’s Dawn McIntosh.

Now based in Perth and Space Systems Director at Fugro’s state of the art Space Automation AI and Robotics Control Complex (SpAARC), McIntosh is heading off to NASA’s Cape Canaveral facility in Florida to watch the long awaited launch.

It is something of a homecoming for McIntosh, who before taking up her role at SpAARC in late 2021, spent two decades working for NASA, including as project manager for the BioSentinel program. It’s her involvement with BioSentinel that sees McIntosh going across to Florida.

The BioSentinel program has spent the last eight years developing a biosensor instrument to detect and measure the impact of space radiation on living organisms over long durations beyond low-Earth orbit. What they’ve come up with is a CubeSat that will be one of ten CubeSats hitching a ride on Artemis 1.

McIntosh says the biology experiment using Saccharomyces cerevisiae yeast will measure DNA damage caused by deep space radiation. The dry yeast cells are stored in microfluidic cards inside the six-unit CubeSat that weighs about 13 and a half kilograms. Each card has 16 wells. Eight of the wells will contain a wild yeast type strain that acts as a control, and eight wells containing a radiationsensitized strain. The CubeSat will operate for between six to nine months.

It's been a long wait for McIntosh and the people behind the other nine CubeSats. Getting Artemis 1 to the launchpad was a big project and beset with delays. Earlier this year, NASA was flagging an already delayed mid-year launch but the space agency said it had many minor wrinkles to iron out first.

McIntosh takes that delay in her stride. There are all sorts of variables that can delay a space launch and she has been around long enough to experience most of them. ‘This is the first launch of a powerful rocket,” Fugro’s Space Systems Director says. “Delays are part of the process.”

Back in Perth, the fit out at SpAARC is coming to a close. The formal opening is in early November but already the facility is conducting some subsea operational activities. SpAARC has been developed to capitalise on Australia’s expertise in remote operations robotics and to parlay that expertise into the space sector.

SpAARC is hopeful that they will be involved in ASA’s Trailblazer Moon to Mars Initiative which revolves around the Australian space sector developing a rover that NASA will take to the Moon as early as 2026. With luck, SpAARC will also be involved in several of the ASA's upcoming Demonstrator low-Earth orbit missions.

SpAARC has partnered with Houston’s Intuitive Machines who work with NASA on that space agency’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative.

SpAARC’s Space Systems Director says working with Intuitive Machines is a perfect example of Australian space expertise working with international partners, particularly Northern Hemisphere international partners.

“Offering services when people are asleep can add value,” she says, noting that working with SpAARC gives US-based companies extended operations during their downtime, and also offers a backup facility in another hemisphere if something goes wrong.

“Internationally, the Australian space sector is on the map,” McIntosh said, adding that was not only due to facilities like SpAARC, but a resurgent local space sector in general and renewed interest (and funding) from state and federal governments.

When asked about what successes the Australian space sector has had this year, McIntosh agrees high-profile launches like Equatorial Launch Australia's partnership with NASA to send rockets into orbit from Arnhem Land were a big deal. But she argues the biggest success of the local space sector is its increased profile.

“There is now an awareness that there is a space sector in Australia,” she says, suggesting that awareness is a highlight and a mark of the sector’s growing maturity. “The next generation can start to see space as a viable career option.”

McIntosh points out that space launches as just one component of the space industry. She agrees that they are exciting and give the sector a profile, but behind every launch are thousands of people working in AI, robotics, computing, and design.

SpAARC’s Space Systems Director thinks Australia’s space sector is progressing well and believes the focus will tighten over the next half a decade.

“The space sector has done several roadmaps at both government and private level,” McIntosh says. “In the next few years, it will tighten up and have some focus areas.” She cites the ASA’s four strategic space pillars as examples of where the future focus areas will lie. The ASA’s pillars are all about international partnerships, working in Australia’s national interest, building the national space capability, and improving the lives of everyday Australians.

“We’ll see big strides in those focus areas playing out over the next five years,” McIntosh said. Meanwhile, she is packing her bags and about to head to Florida.

McIntosh has seen more than one space launch, but she says they never get dull. It doesn’t matter who is behind the launch, it is the culmination of a lot of hard work and that makes for a lot of excited people.

“(NASA) keeps everyone pretty far away onsite. There are several places where people gather. You show up early, stand around with lots of people there for the four-hour countdown.”

Even standing well back, a space launch is a visceral sensory experience. After 20 years at NASA, SpAARC’s Space Systems Director is animated talking about them.

“You can feel it in your chest. It is so bright at night; the night becomes day and you can see the colour of the grass. Then there’s this low frequency noise – a big low, loud rumble.”

McIntosh adds people living as far away as Orlando often stand on their doorstep and watch spacecraft launching from Cape Canaveral head into orbit. It’s a part of life in Florida but also kind of a big deal. Fugro’s Space Systems Director says that she hopes people living in Australian cities will one day be able to do the same.