Australia is betting its economy on someone else’s satellites
Space underpins Australia’s economy, security and infrastructure, yet we rely on assets we don’t own and can’t replace.
The Artemis mission was a fantastic reminder to Australia of just how ambitious and capable we can be in space.
The Canberra Deep Space Network tracking station was one of only three global dishes tracking Orion, while the Australian National University successfully demonstrated a 100-fold improvement in space communications capacity with its revolutionary Quantum Optical Ground Station.
A recent landmark government report also quietly confirmed just how fundamental space is to life in Australia. The Independent Review of the Security of Critical Infrastructure Act found that space technology underpins every critical infrastructure sector, including energy, banking, healthcare, defence, food supply and transport.
GPS alone powers the maps, logistics and atomic timing behind financial transactions. A GPS outage would be faster and more total than a fuel shortage, with no domestic reserve to fall back on.
