This report presents the findings of a preliminary concept study undertaken by the University of New South Wales (UNSW) Canberra Space at the Australian National Concurrent Design Facility (ANCDF), for the AquaWatch Australia Phase 0 (i.e. pre-Phase A) project under the leadership of Commonwealth Scientific Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) and SmartSat CRC. The study, held in February 2021, was the 14th conducted at the ANCDF and it involved 23 people from 9 organisations.

• CSIRO and the Smartsat CRC have partnered on AquaWatch Australia (hereinafter known as “AquaWatch”), a mission to build an integrated, operational Earth Observation (EO) system for monitoring and managing Australia’s inland and coastal water bodies.
• It is expected that the space-based earth observation component of AquaWatch will be a valuable piece of Australian operational, sovereign space infrastructure, supporting sustainable economic growth in a range of industries, environmental management and safe, healthy communities.
• The AquaWatch Phase 0 project sought to develop the AquaWatch concept and prove the feasibility of the system.
• Within AquaWatch Phase 0, further ‘End User Consultation’ has been performed, to establish the business case and to catalogue end-user needs and wants. This led to the creation of initial system requirements; an input to the Concurrent Design Facility (CDF) study covered in this report.
• The preliminary CDF study provided an understanding of the issues around the AquaWatch programme’s space segment; namely the development of a practical system design that meets the user requirements, and an initial cost estimate informing its business case. Several AquaWatch instrument payload concepts were explored.
• The selection of a final technical solution for the operational AquaWatch satellites will require further detailed analyses of the mission. We were able to identify a system design that addresses those requirements and is feasible to construct, commission and operate.
• Further analysis is needed, particularly in terms of achieving the challenging revisit times set by the user needs, and the trade-off between spatial resolution and associated signal to noise performance of the sensor, given the known performance of available components.
• The analysis conducted in the course of the CDF should be considered preliminary, as a means to understand the basic payload and operational needs for the mission space segment, and to analyse trade-offs between water quality monitoring user needs, space engineering practicalities, and associated costs.
• The construction of the whole AquaWatch system would leverage mainly existing and emerging technologies (domestic and overseas), including in-situ sensors and space capabilities. It would also require some targeted R&D activities, particularly around customised satellite imaging systems. A high proportion of locally-developed sub-systems is expected.
• The construction of the AquaWatch space segment would also support growth of domestic industrial capability, and a high degree of reuse, in domestically designed and constructed “small” (up to 200kg class) satellites.
• What were called here “Breakthrough” level requirements lead to a technically challenging instrument design that in turn has important implications for the satellite design and locally sourced components.
• However, several opportunities exist to de-risk the AquaWatch mission and raise local TRL levels through specific, targeted ‘pathfinder’ missions, that are well within current technical capabilities of the Australian space industry. Aside from pathfinders, the design supports a methodical System Engineering approach with a staged roll out. Software can be developed in an iterative/evolutionary/agile way. The modular design means that we have easily separable work packages.
• The study has developed one mission concept in detail (mission concept A) and two alternatives, with lower performance and lower cost (mission concepts B and C).
• Mission cost estimates for concept A indicate AUD 132M for one satellite, which includes, design, manufacture, integration and test, launch, operations and decommissioning.
• Second and subsequent satellites of similar performance are expected to cost around AUD 47M including launch etc. Additional satellites will greatly improve the revisit time and overall benefits of the system.
• There is the potential for cost and schedule savings by considering design reuse or economy of scale implementations with other Australian Earth observation proposals currently under development.
• The economic, environmental, and societal benefits of operating AquaWatch are expected to be very large. Parallel, AquaWatch activities in Market Analysis and End User Consultation are being undertaken to quantify the expected impacts of AquaWatch.
• We acknowledge the active participation and contributions to this study by domain experts from: UNSW Space, CSIRO, University of Queensland, Curtin University, SmartSat CRC, Australian National University, Geoscience Australia, Defence Science and Technology Group, and the Australian Space Agency (names listed in Appendix B).