Senator Gallacher discusses Space Policy in Australian Senate

In a speech to the Australian Senate on the 7th of February, South Australian Senator Alex Gallacher espoused the values of Space to Australia, highlighting the success of the recent policy activities in growing the industry as well as providing inspiration and pathways for students to study maths and science.

Senator Alex Gallacher (image: Parliament of Australia)

"The Labor government recognises the enormous economic value of space and how these programs can inspire students to take on space-related careers in science and engineering or to utilise the technology" said Senator Gallacher, going on to highlight the value to the Australian economy as well as the prospects to boost future employment in the sector.

He goes on to highlight the success of 'Project21', which is an Australian Space Research Program that is being run by the Flinders University, and supporting getting students back into Maths and Science.

It's great to see Space Policy once again making its way back into the discussion in the Australian government, and highlights how space continues to be on the rise in Australia. You can find the Senators speech here.

Australian Space Research Program Round 3 Winners Announced

Round 3 winners for the Australian Space Research Program have been announced on the 25th of November 2010. This rounds grants have seen 3 winners, one in Stream A - Space Education Development, and two in Space Science and Innovation, sharing $9 Million in funding.

For Stream A, a consortium led by Flinders University that includes the South Australian Department of Education and Children’s Services, the South Australian Museum, the Northern Advanced Manufacturing Industry Group, and Education Services Australia, will undertake a project called "Place and Space: Perspective in Earth Observations". The project, which will receive $950,753, will train 40 teachers in earth observation sciences, and assist over 400 secondary students undertake research projects in space-related topics.

The Second project, which will be led by Lockheed Martin Australia, and includes ANU National Computation Infrastructure, Geoscience Australia, Victoria Partnership for Advanced Computing Ltd, and the CRC for Spatial Information, is titled "Unlocking the LANDSAT Archive for Future Challenges". With funding of $3,472,965, the project will enhance Earth Observation ground based infrastructure, to enable ongoing processing of the national LANDSAT archive. It also hopes to make satellite imagery based environment data in a form usable by researchers, policy makers and private sector.

The Final Project will be led by the University of South Australia, and includes EMS Satcom Pacivfic Pty Ltd, COM DEV International Ltd, DSTO, Sage Automation, CSIRO and the Australian Institute of Marine Science. The project, which will receive $4,998,996 funding, will allow the transmission of data from field instruments to researchers live via satellite, by developing and demonstrating a space-ready comunications payload and complete ground system for use in marine monitoring, defence sensor monitoring and industrial automation scenarios.

For further information, head over to the space.gov.au website or direct to the detail here. This takes the total awarded under the ASRP to $34,222,727 with 11 projects funded so far.

Congratulations to all involved!