It’s an exciting time for Australia in space: the establishment of a new Australian Space Agency, the growth of new businesses in the local space industry, and collaborations with international agencies including NASA on their inspirational missions to the Moon and Mars that will create jobs and opportunities for Australians.
Over the past 75 years, Australia’s national science agency – CSIRO – has built strong capabilities and partnerships in space science and technology. It has worked with NASA since 1962, and in July 1969 played a key role in bringing images of the Apollo 11 Moon landing to more than 600 million people around the world.
Today CSIRO manages and operates the Canberra Deep Space Communication Complex, one of NASA’s three spacecraft tracking stations around the world, and is exploring new collaborative research opportunities with NASA on optical communications, medical science, autonomous robotics, remote asset management, in situ resource utilisation, batteries and advanced manufacturing.
CSIRO works with leading global companies and more than 30 small-to-medium businesses on a variety of space-related activities and is a key technology partner to the new Australian Space Agency, supporting the Agency’s goal of tripling the size of the Australian space industry by 2030.
Space science and technology is a valuable source of innovation here on Earth, bringing direct benefits. Technologies developed for the Apollo program, for instance, have led to new types of kidney dialysis machines and water filtration systems, while satellites orbiting Earth enable many areas of our modern lives, from GPS, weather and environmental monitoring, to telecommunications and agriculture.
CSIRO looks forward to continuing to work closely with NASA and the Australian Space Agency on the next giant leaps to the Moon, Mars and beyond.
