Space Minister Kim Carr Gone in Ministerial Shake-up

In the December 12 Ministerial shake-up of the Gillard Government, Space Minister Kim Carr has been moved from the Minister for Innovation (and in charge of the Space Policy Unit) to the Minister for Manufacturing and Defence Materiel.

In his time as Minister for Space, Australia has seen a transformation in the space landscape, and has seen a dramatic growth and increased interested over this period. Moreover, from all reports, Minister Carr was well respected within the Space Community, and showed a genuine interest and understanding of the topic.

It is understood that Minister Greg Combet will take over the responsibility for Minister for Industry and Innovation, and with that, will be the responsibility for Space Activities in Australia.

Thank you Minister Carr for your success and contributions to the field of Space in Australia over the last four years.

We look forward to working with the new Minister for Space, Minister Combet!

Phobos Grunt made contact with ESA station in Perth

ESA recently managed to make contact with the Russian Phobos-Grunt spacecraft, which was intended to be on its way to Mars, but is unfortunately stuck in Low Earth Orbit.

The contact was made through the ESA ground station at the Perth International Telecommunications Centre on the 22^nd of November. 

 The ESA 15m antenna Ground Station in Perth (Image: ESA)

In the days preceding the contact, the 15m diameter dish was modified by adding a ‘feedhorn antenna’ on the side of the main dish, to allow very-low power signals over a wide sky angle, due to the relatively unknown nature of the orbit, as well as the fact that the Phobos-Grunt spacecraft is optimised to receive only low transmit power signals as expected on the mission to Mars.

 Modifications made to the main dish at the Perth Ground Station (Image: ESA)

In making contact, telecommands from the Russian Mission control were transmitted, with hope that the mission could be recovered.

Unfortunately, since this contact by the Perth Station, no additional contacts have been made, with the window to send the mission to Mars now closed. ESA has also now had to re-task its Perth ground station to support other missions. It is likely that the Phobos-Grunt spacecraft will re-enter the earth’s atmosphere, with predictions of re-entry between lat December 2011 and late February 2012.  

Two US – Australia Space Agreements Extended

The recent visit of the President of the United States of America Barack Obama to Australia saw two space agreements renewed, continuing the Australian / US cooperation in Space. NASA and the Department of Industry, Innovation, Science and Research (DIISR) have announced their intention to extend two bilateral space agreements that would otherwise expire in 2012.

The first, the Space Vehicle Tracking and Communications Facilities Agreement (1980), is for CSIRO to operate the Canberra Deep Space Communications Complex (CDSCC) – one of NASA’s three main global deep space communications facilities. The updated agreement will come into force on the 26th of February 2012, and is extended until Feb 26, 2014. The exchange of notes can be found here and here.

The second agreement is the Scientific Ballooning Agreement (2006) to allow NASA and Australian partners (CSIRO, UNSW etc) to develop civil payloads and technology for NASA high altitude balloon missions, building upon agreements on scientific ballooning agreements since 1984. The agreement also allows Australian scientists to be involved in the NASA ballooning campaigns, with each balloon campaign that NASA undertakes is estimated to contribute $5 Million to the Australian economy. The treaty exchange of notes can be found here, with the National Interest Analysis is here with the agreement to be renewed on the 12 June 2012 after expiry of the current agreement.

I note that both analysis highlight that NASA has spent ‘in excess of $740 million’ on space-related activities in Australia since 1960 – that’s a sizable sum of money!