[ad_1]
The Australian space sector is making steady progress towards creating a sovereign space capability, for both civilian and commercial roles as well as defense and national security tasks. It also continues to play a crucial role in international collaboration, which includes hosting NASA’s deep-space communications complex in Tidbinbilla, just outside Canberra.
The Tidbinbilla facility, part of NASA’s Deep Space Network, is essential to support communications with numerous interplanetary probes in deep space. For example, the site’s largest antenna, the 70-meter DSS-43 dish, is the only one in the Southern Hemisphere capable of communicating with Voyager 2, whose mission has been running since 1977 and is now entering interstellar space at an astonishing distance of 18 billion kilometers from the earth.
With a series of interplanetary missions currently underway or expected to launch in the next few years, Tidbinbilla’s international significance is likely to grow. Several probes are already en route to Mars, most notably NASA’s Mars 2020 Perseverance rover which will land in February 2021 to search for life beneath the Martian surface, and the Hope Mars probe, launched by the United Arab Emirates and currently supported by Tidbinbilla. NASA is also developing the Europa Clipper, a complex probe that will orbit Jupiter’s moon Europa and study the ocean beneath its icy surface. Tidbinbilla will support that mission once it launches, likely in the next decade.
In terms of manned spaceflight, the Biden administration is almost certain to support, albeit belatedly, NASA’s Artemis manned missions to the moon. Following in the footsteps of Honeysuckle Creek and Parkes during the Apollo missions in the 1960s, in the 1920s Tidbinbilla will provide communications support for a crew’s upcoming landing on the lunar surface.
The facility also supports missions from other national space agencies, including the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency. A key task currently is providing communications to the Japanese probe Hayabusa 2, which is returning to earth after a visit to the asteroid Ryugu. The entry capsule containing a surface sample is expected to land in Woomera in South Australia this weekend.
The Tidbinbilla facility thus positions Australia at the pinnacle of global cooperation in many space science activities and plays a key role in international engagement, which the Australian Space Agency emphasizes in its 2019 civilian space strategy.
Considering how Australia’s role in space is expected to evolve, the strategy is about inspiring a future generation of space leaders by engaging the nation and building a future workforce, as well as through “moon missions”. The strategy alludes to the contribution of Australian experience and technology to robotic systems on the lunar surface, perhaps in support of mining operations.
But why limit Australia’s efforts to robotic mining? With the moonhot concept in mind, Australia should seize the opportunity to combine business in its commercial satellite sector, which focuses on the development of small satellites and low-cost cubesats, with the field of space science to extend the our international commitment and expand our horizons in space.
One possibility would be for the Australian space sector, in collaboration with universities, to explore how small satellite technologies and sovereign launch capabilities could support an Australian interplanetary mission. An interplanetary probe, based on small satellite technologies and launched from Australia on an Australian launch vehicle, such as the Eris booster proposed by Gilmour Space Technologies, would place Australia in a select group of countries that have, or are planning, interplanetary missions. . It would raise our profile as a major space power internationally and increase the opportunities of the Australian space sector for the future, particularly for collaborative research in space science.
A key focus of the first mission of this kind should be technological demonstration and experimentation. More importantly, it should be to demonstrate that Australia can use small satellites or low-cost cubesat technologies and architectures for its deep space exploration. Space probes based on small satellites and cubesats like NASA’s Capstone project are proving that deep space missions don’t have to involve huge financial costs or large and complex probes. Australia must embrace this low-cost path as the best approach to broadening our profile in space science.
By experimenting with advanced propulsion technologies such as solar-electric propulsion, Australian space probes could explore the inner solar system alongside those of other nations. As a sign of maturity in our space sector, it is important that such missions are overseen by the new mission control center which will be located at the Australian Space Agency headquarters in Adelaide.
Successfully demonstrating this technology – and generating a useful scientific return – at a reasonable cost will open up a new area for the Australian space community to expand. Rather than simply pursuing satellites in Earth orbit, Australia could serve as a technological trailblazer for low-cost probes undertaking orbital missions to the Moon, Mars, Venus and possibly nearby asteroids for research that contributes to our understanding of planetary science.
With this goal in mind, the importance of facilities like Tidbinbilla is expected to grow even more, in turn justifying more US and Australian investment in expansion. Additional satellite dishes could be built at the Tidbinbilla complex, including to experiment with advanced communications with spacecraft, such as laser optical communications. Other tasks, such as radar detection in deep space and imaging of potentially dangerous near-Earth asteroids, could be performed by the facility.
The expansion of our international collaboration in space should be seen as an important element of our soft power and a means of contributing with public goods that promote international cooperation in space. Investing more in new capabilities for facilities like Tidbinbilla would increase Australia’s importance in international space cooperation.
If the Australian space community were to consider the possibility of an Australian interplanetary mission through locally developed technologies that could be launched from Australia, this would take our approach to space to the next level, both on land and in deep space.
Source link
