Image courtesy NASA EOSDIS/LANCE and GIBS/Worldview

Included in Tuesday’s federal government Budget was an announcement of $1.16 billion in funding to design, build and operate four new Earth observation satellites — the Satellite Cross-Calibration Radiometer (SCR) mission.

“This funding is significant in that it will enable Australia to develop an end-to-end sovereign skill base in the design, manufacture and operation of satellites for Earth observation services which are critical to Australia’s security and prosperity,” said RMIT Space Industry Hub Director Distinguished Professor, Brian Falzon.

“It will also make Australia more self-sufficient when it comes to critical Earth Observation data, e.g. for bushfires and water monitoring.”

Professor Falzon said that establishing a skill base in satellite development, deployment and operation will give Australia the confidence to pursue additional space missions, growing the sector and helping the nation to become a significant global player.

“Not only will we see job growth in the upstream sector, but the data gathered, which will be of particular relevance to Australia, will also facilitate growth in the downstream sector as we develop new ways of analysing and using this data,” said Professor Falzon.

“The SCR mission will give Australia the ability to compare and combine data from the many different foreign systems; and more importantly, reduce our dependence on any single foreign satellite system.”

According to Professor Falzon, reduce Australia’s current heavy reliance on foreign-owned satellites will enable the nation to “determine the type of data that we want to obtain, which is of particular relevance to Australia”.

“For example, this may include data from natural disasters (e.g. bushfires or floods), which is then used to rapidly develop and deploy damage mitigation strategies.”

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