Last month I was fortunate enough to be invited to speak on a panel at the National Space Industry Hub Expo 2023 at Cicada Innovations as part of their first birthday celebrations. The panel was moderated by Alex Snelson from Microsoft Azure Space, as Matt Ryall from Mawson Rovers, Anne Bettens from Deneb Space (one of our own SmartSat PhD students) and myself discussed how it takes a village to grow a space ecosystem and where Australia sits in comparison to our global counterparts.

The event also incorporated a welcome reception for the UK Space Trade Mission, where I was able to highlight the success of a collaborative research model. Particularly, through ventures such as the Aurora Start-up Cluster and SmartSat’s broader collaboration with start-up and scale-up companies throughout our partner network.

In February we attended a VIP Demonstration of the Compact Hybrid Optical/RF User Segment (CHORUS) terminal. Hosted at the Defence Science and Technology Group headquarters at Edinburgh, a delegation of stakeholders from project partners SmartSat, the Australian Space Agency, the Australian National University, the University of South Australia and Shoal Group were granted exclusive access to the laser testing range where the team were actively testing their highly integrated, tactical satellite communications terminal combining radio frequency and optical frequency capabilities.

Of course, I can’t leave out our time spent at the Avalon Airshow earlier this month. While SmartSat was not represented by its own stand, our influence was well represented. Representatives from the SmartSat Victorian Node, New South Wales Node and Queesland Earth Observation Hub were hosted on stands in the exhibition hall with RMIT University’s Space Industry Hub, the New South Wales Government and the Queensland Government respectively. Most important however, was out presence at the UK Pavilion, where SmartSat was proud to launch a new supply chain mapping tool showcasing space sector capabilities across Australia and the UK. This tool, developed by SmartSat, Satellite Applications Catapult and the UK Space Agency was debuted at a special event at the UK Pavilion, marking the second anniversary of the UK-Australia Space Bridge. The collaboration that has been made possible through this initiative has opened up a world of opportunities for each countries research sectors, showing the value of building strong international relationships and the importance of collaboration for success.

Dr Carl Seubert
Chief Research Officer