An Australian-first communication station designed to connect Earth with space travellers is to be built at Mt Stromlo by the Australian National University (ANU), with a little help from the ACT Government.
Minister for Advanced Technology and Space Industries, Mick Gentleman said the Territory is to support the ANU’s Quantum Optical Ground Station with a cash injection of $800,000 from the Priority Investment Program.
Mr Gentleman said the Station would help researchers and industry better access unused data about the universe as well as enable better monitoring of our own planet.
He said the Station would provide high speed communications technology and complement the Territory’s growing space industry, further cementing Canberra as Australia’s space capital.
“The space industry is an important contributor to our local economy, attracting jobs, international business and world leading research groups,” Mr Gentleman said.
“According to industry estimates, almost one in four of Australia’s space sector jobs – around 2,000 jobs – are currently in Canberra,” he said.
Project leader, Francis Bennet from the ANU Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics, said most of the data captured from satellites and instruments in space never finds its way back down to Earth.
“For example, the Keppler space telescope launched by NASA to discover Earth-sized planets was only able to transmit one per cent of the data it captured back home,” Dr Bennet said.
“That means we missed out on 99 per cent of what was found,” he said.
“This new ground station will change all that.”
Dr Bennet said the new station would give researchers the ability to tap into the massive volumes of data gathered each day in space, as well as improve the monitoring of Earth’s water, weather and other vital signs.
