Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales, vol. 153, part 1, 2020, pp. 61–64. ISSN 0035-9173/20/010061-04
CSIRO: our roadmap for space
Kimberley Clayfield Leader, Space Technology Future Science Platform, CSIRO, Australia Email: kimberley.clayfield@csiro.au
Introduction Australia is uniquely positioned in the SIRO, Australia’s national science Southern Hemisphere to support interna- Cagency, was established more than a tional space missions through the provision hundred years ago and has 75 years of space of tracking and communication services. science heritage. Fifty years ago CSIRO CSIRO was recently appointed to pro- played a key role in supporting NASA’s vide operational support for the European Apollo 11 mission to the Moon. Space Agency’s Deep Space Tracking Sta- Today the $350 billion global space tion at New Norcia in Western Australia. market is growing, NASA is calling for a And CSIRO also manages the operations return to the Moon with international par- of CDSCC, which is one of three stations ticipation, and Australia is uniquely posi- worldwide that make up NASA’s Deep tioned and eager to take advantage of this Space Network. CDSCC is currently track- opportunity. The Australian Space Agency ing around 35 Deep Space missions, includ- was established with the goal of tripling ing the well-known Voyager 2 spacecraft. the size of the Australian space industry in After 42 years Voyager 2 is now approxi- terms of economic value, and creating up to mately 18 billion kilometres from Earth 20,000 jobs, by the year 2030. Investing in travelling through interstellar space, and R&D to assist Australian industry growth due to Voyager 2’s southward trajectory out and solve Australia’s greatest challenges is of the solar system and its distance from CSIRO’s core role. CSIRO aims to be a key Earth, the CDSCC tracking station and the technology partner to the Australian Space Parkes radio telescope are now the only two Agency, driving technological innovations facilities in the world that are capable of and providing science and research facili- having contact with that spacecraft. ties that will support the Agency’s industry CSIRO has had world-leading capabili- growth goal. ties in Earth observation data analytics, cali- CSIRO hosts several national space bration and validation for decades, which facilities, including the Australia Telescope are coordinated by the CSIRO Centre National Facility, or ATNF, and the Can- for Earth Observation. This centre is also berra Deep Space Communication Complex, home to CSIRO’s first CubeSat, CSIRO- or CDSCC. The ATNF includes three radio Sat-1, which is under development in part- telescopes in New South Wales at Parkes, nership with Adelaide space technology Narrabri and Mopra, near Coonabarabran, company Inovor Technologies, and is due plus the Australian Square Kilometre Array to be launched from the International Space Pathfinder in Western Australia, which is an Station in 2021. array of 36 antennas.
61 Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales Clayfield — CSIRO: our roadmap for space
The Centre for Earth Observation also sensing systems, structural technologies manages CSIRO’s 10 per cent capacity share and onboard data processing of the UK-operated NovaSAR-1 satellite, • remote operations and in situ resource which is expected to become fully opera- utilisation, including new technologies tional in 2020. NovaSAR-1 is a synthetic for off-Earth resource exploration and aperture radar (SAR) satellite which can synthetic biology approaches to resource operate day and night, and through smoke extraction and cloud, making it well suited to assisting • human factors and biomedical technolo- with managing many of our national bush- gies to better support human space mis- fire and flood challenges. CSIRO will oper- sions ate our share of NovaSAR-1 as a national facility for all researchers to access. • Earth observation data analytics and applications development Space Technology • new high bandwidth space communica- Future Science Platform tion technologies using optical and tera- In addition to these activities, CSIRO’s hertz band links, and newest space research program is the Space • new techniques for space object tracking. Technology Future Science Platform, or Space FSP. The aim of this program is to Current projects further CSIRO’s space capabilities by iden- The following section highlights a few exam- tifying and developing the science to leap- ples of the projects underway through the frog traditional space technologies, and to Space FSP. identify new areas for Australian industry NASA is planning to return humans to to work in — areas in which we can lever- the Moon by 2024 and establish a perma- age our existing space and terrestrial capa- nent human presence there, and the Aus- bilities for new space applications, and in tralian Government recently committed which Australia can be globally competitive to supporting the Australian space sector in order to support the Australian Space to participate in this mission. There is sig- Agency’s industry growth goals. nificant interest in accessing valuable lunar The Space FSP was established in late 2018 resources, particularly water ice, to sup- with a program lifetime currently of three port human missions to the Moon. Remote and a-half years. Over the past 12 months mining operations and asset management the Space FSP has already initiated 23 pro- are already a strength of the Australian jects with a total program value of over $21 resources sector, and applying this to the million already. Its activities focus on the space environment through in situ resource National Civil Space Priorities outlined by utilisation is a challenge that Australia is the Australian Space Agency and address a looking to play a role in. wide array of opportunities, including: The Space FSP currently has four pro- • advanced satellite technologies, particu- jects in the robotics, remote operations and larly in relation to CubeSats and small resource utilisation area, and one of these satellites, including power, control and projects is developing a predictive analytics software platform to produce 3D resource
62 Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales Clayfield — CSIRO: our roadmap for space models of the Moon, asteroids and other ing techniques — namely electron beam bodies to support future prospecting and melting and cold spray — for Invar, which resource utilisation planning. The Space FSP is a low coefficient of thermal expansion is also looking at potential new opportu- alloy, to create metallic composite compo- nities relating to providing space analogue nents, including precision optics mounts, facilities here in Australia, which encom- for CubeSats. Using these manufacturing passes everything from Mars surface ana- techniques, the mechanical properties of a logues to microgravity facilities to digital composite component can be tailored in twins. different locations on that component. The Space FSP is also leveraging CSIRO’s With regard to space biomedicine and existing Earth observation expertise and space life sciences, experimental “labs in a facilities to make significant developments cube”, based on the CubeSat format, are related to the accessibility and application a permanent fixture on the International of satellite-derived data. This includes: uti- Space Station (ISS). One of the Space FSP lising the NovaSAR-1 satellite to grow SAR projects is developing a new “lab in a cube” expertise nationally and drive the uptake testing platform called an Optocube, which of SAR data in Australia; and building on will enable human cells, particularly bone CSIRO’s data cube expertise to create high- cells, to be studied on the ISS. The Opto- performance data processing infrastructure cube is unique in that it will use light as the to better analyse, integrate and utilise mul- only stimulus to control cells and to detect tiple Earth observation data types includ- results, so the experiments are able to be ing hyperspectral and lidar data. This latter completely contactless. project aims to improve satellite data acces- The Space FSP is also in the preliminary sibility and utilisation for a broad range of stages of exploring opportunities related to applications, from agricultural crop and bio-manufacturing for healthcare in space, freshwater algal bloom modelling to carbon and space agriculture. stock and greenhouse gas monitoring. Globally, rapidly growing Earth observa- Future pathways tion data volumes are an ongoing challenge The projects mentioned here are not an both with regard to effective handling and exhaustive list of the Space FSP’s activities. use of the data for various applications, and Furthermore, the Space FSP currently runs with respect to the increasing bandwidth until mid-2022 and it will continue to invest required to downlink the data from satel- in new collaborative activities over the next lites. Under another Space FSP project, the two and a half years. CSIROSat-1 satellite will provide a platform All of these investments of course pro- to demonstrate sophisticated onboard data duce the best outcomes when they are done processing techniques to reduce the amount in partnership with other research organisa- of data needing to be downlinked from the tions and with industry, which provides the satellite. path to impact for these new technologies, In the materials and manufacturing and the Space FSP welcomes opportunities domain one of the Space FSP projects is for new collaborations. CSIRO will also demonstrating novel additive manufactur- continue to partner on other R&D pro-
63 Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales Clayfield — CSIRO: our roadmap for space grams to build Australian space industry CSIRO looks forward to continuing to capability, like the DMTC High Altitude work closely with the Australian Space Sensor Systems Program and the SmartSat Agency and Australian industry on the next CRC. giant leaps to the Moon, Mars and beyond. https://research.csiro.au/space/
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