Electronic warfare company DEWC Systems will look to use a planned launch facility in South Australia for the deployment of its defense satellite constellation.

DEWC Systems’ Troy Boswell works on a piece of defense technology. Picture: Simon Casson/defense Innovation Partnerships.

As part of its Miniaturized Orbital Electronic Warfare Sensor System (MOESS), DEWC Systems will work with Southern Launch to be an early adopter of its satellite launch facilities at the Whalers Way Orbital Launch Complex on Eyre Peninsula.

Adelaide-based DEWC Systems received a $150,000 defense Innovation Partnership grant in November 2018 to lead phase one of the MOESS project in collaboration with DST, Flinders University, the University of Adelaide and University of South Australia.

The project is moving from the research phase to design and prototyping in the coming months and is expecting to progress to flight trials in 2020 and in-space testing in 2022.

The MOESS project will involve a constellation of about 20 CubeSats fitted with a range of sensors and monitoring equipment to detect radio frequencies and signals such as radars to offer a view of ship and aircraft movements from above.

It aims to provide the first fully Australian developed, owned and operated space based Electronic Warfare capability.

The announcement in December that Australia’s new national space agency would be based in Adelaide has sparked a flurry of activity among South Australian startups and more established companies in the space and defense sectors.

DEWC Systems CEO Ian Spencer said having a national space agency also provided the opportunity for Australia to contribute more on an international level rather than continuously relying on the goodwill of other nations.

“Our aim is to be able to provide Australia with new capability we currently don’t possess ourselves,” he said.

“We need to believe in ourselves as a nation and that’s about being a bit more self-reliant on Australian developed technologies and capabilities.”

“This will also give Australia the ability to contribute to our partner and allied capabilities so that we can have a more equal standing in the FIVE EYES community as well.”

Southern Launch announced in December it had found the perfect site to develop its Whalers Way Orbital Launch Complex.

The 1190-hectare site sits at the bottom of Eyre Peninsula, about a 35-minute drive from the regional center of Port Lincoln. The complex is 250km west of Adelaide and 500km south of Woomera, the historic rocket launch site that is restricted to military use.

Orbital launch routes from Whalers Way Orbital Launch Complex in
South Australia.

The Whalers Way facility is expected to begin construction this year and has already attracted interest from global space companies such as Sitael.

Southern Launch’s infrastructure is being designed to target rockets that can carry small satellite payloads of between 50kg and 400kg. Given the launch site location and planned launch direct out over the Great Australian Bight, rockets will carry satellites into polar orbits and provide truly global coverage for services such as the Internet of Things (IoT), monitoring of land, sea and air, or providing dedicated communications to remote parts of the world.

Launched from the Whalers Way Orbital Launch Complex, the MOESS satellites will enter polar Low Earth Orbit and provide worldwide coverage at a fraction of the cost of other launch sites.

Southern Launch CEO Lloyd Damp said he was looking forward to working with DEWC Systems on the MOESS project.

“It is Southern Launch’s goal to help develop the resilient, space-enabled Australian defense Force of the future, something that is shared by DEWC Systems,” Damp said.

“The MOESS project, led by DEWC Systems will provide our defense Force with a tactical edge that will ensure the safety and security of our soldiers.”

Spencer, right, said he planned to have CubeSat prototypes ready for testing by early 2021, which included design work to integrate with a space launch vehicle.

DEWC Systems CEO Ian Spencer. Picture: Simon Casson.

“Hopefully we can line things up so that when Lloyd is ready to start launching we can jump on board,” he said.

“We’re trying to work with as many South Australian companies as we can.

“The Australian space industry is just taking off at the moment and the announcement of the space agency being housed in South Australia is stimulating a lot of interest and there has been a lot of investment in all sorts of things to do with space.

“It’s a really good time to be in it because there’s an understanding that while we need to be competitive businesses, we are also looking for ways to work together where we can and there’s a real sense of mutual benefit.”

Last month it was announced that the national $245 million SmartSat CRC would be headquartered at the University of South Australia in Adelaide with 82 industry and research partners including DEWC Systems and Southern Launch.

The SmartSat CRC bid is among the latest in a series of announcements that have cemented South Australia’s position as the headquarters for the space industry in Australia along with a $6 million Mission Control Centre for small satellite missions and an educational Discovery Centre to also be built in Adelaide.

South Australia has been a significant player in the nation’s space industry and is home to major Tier 1 defense companies and several emerging space start-ups, including Fleet Space Technologies, Inovor Technologies and Myriota, which have all announced new IoT initiatives this year.

DEWC started in 2011 as a consultancy company and rapidly grew into three separate companies: DEWC Services and DEWC Systems, specializes in developing and delivering innovative and ground-breaking electronic warfare-related technologies while DEWC T&E is training and education focussed.

Based at Mawson Lakes in Adelaide’s northern suburbs, DEWC Systems formed in early 2018 to enhance defense capability and to help build the Australian defense industry within South Australia.

This month DEWC Systems also announced the acquisition of an established local engineering firm, AES, to fast track its commercial expansion.

The deal will give DEWC Systems the facilities, tools and personnel to move from service providers for other companies to producers of its own innovative hardware and software products.

AES Managing Director Bruce Lobb and DEWC Systems CEO Ian Spencer signed the acquisition agreement earlier this month that will see Lobb stay on as chief engineer for the DEWC group of companies.

Spencer said the AES acquisition was a “real turning point” for DEWC Systems.

“We were on a path of development that needed to be rapid but it was slower than what we would have liked,” he said.

“By bringing AES into the fold we’ve become the fully capable company that we’d set out to be.

“Now the research phase of MOESS is coming to an end, in the next couple of months we’ll start moving into the design and prototyping, which is when we’ll start leveraging off their skills.

“There are a number of other jobs and projects we’re working on and aiming for that will require us to use these new skills as well.”

AES was started in 1979 and has solved engineering problems across several industries including agriculture, medical, avionics and defense.

Its previous defense projects included work on JORN, Wedge Tail, Echidna, Collins Class Submarines and Anzac Frigates for the NZ Navy.

Spencer said the space and defense industries were now interlinked.

“We were primarily in defense but it’s very much space now as well,” he said.

“We definitely still do defense work that’s not space related and we now do space work that’s not defense related.

“Just being in the space and being part of a community that’s very enthusiastic at the moment allows us the confidence to invest in a bit of R&D.”

By Andrew Spence, TheLead, South Australia

Kleos Space S.A. (ASX: KSS, Frankfurt: KS1), (Kleos or Company) has revealed that the company’s Scouting Mission1 launch is confirmed for August 2019 on a Rocket Lab Electron launch vehicle.

All preparations by Kleos on the Kleos’ Scouting Mission satellites are on track for mission readiness and will be onsite, ready for flight preparation as soon as the Rocket Lab customer area is ready to accept the Kleos team for integration activities. Satellite testing will conclude with a complete system test using KSAT (Kleos Scouting Mission ground station service provider) specialist ground station equipment, immediately prior to Flight Acceptance Review and dispatch to launch Site.

Assembled Kleos Scouting Mission smallsats.
Image is courtesy of the company.

All four satellites have successfully completed all the necessary checks with the Rocket Lab’s in-house designed and built Maxwell dispenser which is used for deployment from the Electron kick stage to LEO. Pre-flight testing of critical functions within the detection systems on the satellites used for the creation of the Kleos geolocation data, have performed significantly better than specification, this improvement will further increase accuracy and product value. The Kleos’ Scouting Mission satellites are to be commissioned in a precise 500 km. SSO as part of a rideshare.

The first scouting mission is comprised of 4x smallsats built by GomSpace in Denmark, each the size of a shoebox. The multi-satellite Scouting Mission system will form the foundation of a constellation that delivers a global picture of hidden maritime activity, enhancing the intelligence capability of government and commercial entities when AIS (Automatic Identification System) is defeated, imagery is unclear, or targets are out of patrol range. Rocket Lab advised that the 14-day launch window will be publicly notified approximately 20 days prior to the target launch date.

Rocket Lab’s SVP of Global Launch Services, Lars Hoffman, said the company is excited to give the Kleos Scouting Mission satellites a first-class ride to orbit on Electron. The firm has worked closely with the Kleos team to design a tailored rideshare mission that lays the strong foundation for a future constellation.

Innovative Solutions in Space was selected by the University of Hawaii at Manoa’s Hawaii Space Flight Laboratory (HSFL) to realize their 6U smallsat platform.

ISISpace and HSFL will work closely on the design for this challenging mission. ISISpace will provide the platform while the payload integration and flight preparation will be completed by HSFL.

The platform, called HyTI – Hyperspectral Thermal Imager, will demonstrate how high spectral (25 bands) and spatial resolution (60 m) thermal infrared image data can be acquired from a 6U cubesat.

The platform, called HyTI – Hyperspectral Thermal Imager, will demonstrate how high spectral (25 bands) and spatial resolution (60 m) thermal infrared image data can be acquired from a 6U CubeSat.

Image is courtesy of ISIS.

The mission will test several novel technologies including an interferometric imaging approach for acquiring the spectral data, and NASA/JPL’s Barrier InfraRed Detector technology. In addition to the HSFL and ISIS, the team includes the Hawaii Institute of Geophysics and Planetology (HIGP), the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, West Coast Solutions, Quest Unlimited, American Infrared (AIRS), SaraniaSat, and New England Optical Systems (NEOS). The project received funding from NASA’s Earth Science Technology Office InVEST program.

Robert Wright, Interim Director of HIGP, University of Hawaii at Manoa, and PI of the HyTI mission said the organizations is pleased to be collaborating with ISISpace on this exciting mission and look forward to combining this innovative approach to acquiring high spectral resolution thermal data with their innovative solutions to spacecraft design, fabrication, and integration.

Abe Bonnema, Marketing Director at ISISpace, added the company is honored to have been selected to build the platform for the Hawaii Spaceflight Laboratory based on the firm’s expertise and innovative approach and all look forward to delivering the platform for this prestigious NASA-funded mission.

The next generation of weather satellites will have a Northern Michigan connection.

Atlas Space Operations in Traverse City is teaming up with Planet IQ to provide support for a constellation of 20 small satellites. 

Mike Carey, Atlas Space Operations

The satellites will collect 50,000 data points every day, measuring reflective energy to help predict hurricanes and other weather phenomena.

They’ll provide more than ten times the amount of data than sensors gather from current satellites.

Atlas will provide communications between those new satellites and ground stations around the world.

“So they’ll be using our ground stations globally in the Arctic and eventually Antarctica. But also in the mid-regions of Earth to capture this data in a very timely manner,” Mike Carey with Atlas Space Operations.

The partnership between Atlas and Planet IQ has already begun.

The first satellites are preparing for launch sometime this fall.

By Bill Froelich, 9&10News Northern Michigan 

GomSpace’s subsidiary in Luxembourg and the European Space Agency (ESA) have signed a contract of 400,000 euros for the Phase A design of the Miniaturized Asteroid Remote Geophysical Observer (M-ARGO) mission.

Under the contract, GomSpace will be in charge of preliminary design of the mission, spacecraft and implementation planning. A “12U” cubesat spacecraft configuration is envisioned for the mission, packing in beyond state-of-the-art advancements in miniaturized technologies including communication, instrumentation, electric propulsion and operational autonomy to be demonstrated in the deep space environment.

This preliminary concept illustration of the M-Argo spacecraft
is courtesy of GomSpace.

Expected launch of the mission is in 2023, subject to funding of the implementation phase, and it will be the first nanosatellite ever to rendezvous with an asteroid and perform close proximity operations over an extended period for identification of in-situ resources.

The NEO population now has more than 20,000 largely uncharted asteroids and the M-ARGO capability will be able to access the nearest 100 or more in terms of propellant needed to achieve a rendezvous. NEOs are interesting for scientific exploration as well as for the potential of future long-term exploitation of minerals and other useful materials mined from asteroids. In addition, NEOs pose a threat for potential collisions with the Earth, requiring the need for further understanding of their physical properties for future planetary defense purposes. Smallsat technology will allow future cost-efficient exploration of these objects in significant numbers.

Artistic rendition of the M-ARGO spacecraft on mission. Image is courtesy of ESA-Jacky Huart.

The work will be implemented in Luxembourg in line with GomSpace Group’s ambitions to benefit from the local space ecosystem. The work will be supported by the scientific-technological university, Politecnico di Milano in Italy, providing expert support on deep space mission analysis and navigation of low thrust trajectories associated with electric propulsion.

The contract is funded by the Luxembourg Space Agency through the Fly element of ESA’s General Support Technology Program. The mission implementation beyond the current phase A contract is open to further European cooperation, and to maximize outcome of the mission a scientific committee on asteroid mining is being set up to consolidate the scientific requirements and propose the most suitable instruments for the mission.

Roger Walker, Head of ESA’s Cubesat Systems Unit, said the M-ARGO technology demonstration mission is intended as an enabler of a potential future operational capability for highly cost-effective in-situ resource exploration of the accessible Near-Earth Object (NEO) population using a fleet of deep space cubesats.

GomSpace CEO, Niels Buus, added that activities such as M-ARGO allow the company to develop the firm’s internal capabilities and technologies to new levels to the benefit of science and exploration as well as to build competitive advantage for the commercial markets. With these orders, GomSpace is satisfied to have built significant momentum for space exploration capabilities and positions the company well to serve ESA as well as other institutional customers on future ,high-profile long duration missions.

Elon Musk says SpaceX’s Starlink satellites will autonomously avoid hazards in orbit. Experts are not so sure…

The 60 Starlink satellites that SpaceX is preparing to launch tomorrow, after two delays last week, are the first in a planned mega-constellation of nearly 12,000 satellites that Elon Musk hopes will bring affordable broadband Internet to everyone in the world.

The first 60 Starlink satellites slated for launch are shown here loaded into a Falcon 9. Photo: Elon Musk/Twitter

However, once launched, they will occupy low earth orbits (LEO) that are becoming increasingly crowded with other satellites and space debris.

Last Wednesday, SpaceX revealed that its Starlink satellites will be the first to autonomously avoid collisions with objects in orbit. Elon Musk told reporters, “They will use their thrusters to maneuver automatically around anything that [the U.S. military] is tracking.”

According to multiple experts, however, a single source of orbital data is not good enough to automate critical decisions about safety.

Today, ground-based radars operated by the U.S. military and private companies track everything in LEO larger than around 10 centimeters in size. When two objects look like they might collide, the U.S. Air Force issues a conjunction alert with the probability of the collision. At the moment, satellite operators review such alerts manually, conduct their own assessment or consult other sources, and then choose whether or not to move their spacecraft.

“Collision probabilities are like people—no two are created the same way. It’s a very poor metric to use as a sole basis to do maneuvers,” says Moriba Jah, an aerospace engineer at the University of Texas at Austin. “Some people use the alerts and other people disregard them because they just don’t trust them.”

“Without frequent measurements, the data uncertainty can be high,” agrees Raymond Sedwick, an aerospace engineer at the University of Maryland’s Center for Orbital Debris Education and Research. “It’s like saying, something is going to pass within 100 meters of your spacecraft, with an uncertainty of 1,000 meters. What do you do about that? Do you stay or do you move?”

When faced with a 12 percent chance of a collision with a rival CubeSat in January, earth observation startup Capella Space decided to move its satellite. “With the time prior to moving, the time the maneuver takes, and a post-maneuver phase to check things out, it certainly disrupted our business,” says Capella CEO Payam Banazadeh. The satellites missed each other.

As LEO fills up with more and more satellites, the number of conjunction alerts is set to increase dramatically. Glenn Peterson, a researcher at the Aerospace Corporation, has calculated that if all the mega-constellations planned for LEO reach orbit, more than 67,300 alerts would be generated every year. 

SpaceX’s solution is to automate the process. When SpaceX receives a conjunction alert for one its Starlinks, it will send the information directly to the satellite, which will then take appropriate evasive maneuvers using on-board electric thrusters. SpaceX could not immediately confirm whether the satellites would move in response to all alerts, or just those reaching a certain probability of collision. 

“If [you react when] someone tells you there’s a 1 in 10,000 chance that you’re going to hit, you’ll be making a lot of maneuvers,” says Hugh Lewis, an engineering professor and space debris expert at the University of Southampton. “If you set your level at 1 in 50, you won’t be making lots of maneuvers but you’re potentially going to be hit. I think the ultimate decision should have a human being involved in it.”

There is also the possibility, albeit remote, that the satellite might inadvertently shift itself into the path of another object. 

“I think the ultimate decision should have a human being involved in it.” —Hugh Lewis, University of Southampton

A Space Act Agreement between SpaceX and NASA, signed last August, shows that Starlink satellites will use a powerful Linux multiprocessor system-on-chip, highly accurate GPS hardware, and NASA software to fix their own positions to within centimeters.

It will send that information  to the Combined Space Operations Center, the Air Force unit in charge of space traffic. “This is absolutely vital for spacing and maintaining the constellation,” says Lewis. “But it’s not going to help you at all figure out where other objects are.”

Given that Musk is also the CEO and co-founder of Tesla, a comparison with autonomous vehicles is inevitable. “Nobody’s even comfortable with driverless cars yet. Now, apply that [technology] to a spacecraft traveling orders of magnitude faster in an environment that’s really quite congested, and where you can’t see everything,” says Lewis. “This is unproven, untested technology destined for not just one satellite, but potentially tens of thousands.”

Jah thinks the automation part of SpaceX’s plan is “brilliant” but also that “automating something crappy doesn’t make sense.” To help solve this, Jah is building AstriaGraph, the world’s first crowd-sourced space traffic monitoring system. AstriaGraph incorporates Air Force data, but also location data from satellite operators, and from private space tracking companies like LeoLabs. By giving satellite operators—and possibly even autonomous satellites—more data, he hopes to improve the accuracy of future collision alerts.

“The key to orbital safety is transparency and predictability,” says Jah. “People need to tell other people where their stuff is located so they can move out of the way.”

However, unlike some of the other companies building mega-constellations, SpaceX has been quite secretive about its plans and technologies to date.

“The silver lining is that once the spacecraft go up, they cannot hide them,” says Lewis. “Everything they do will be visible to people on the ground. And I’m going to be one of the people watching to see what happens.”

By Mark Harris, IEEE Spectrum

Space Flight Laboratory (SFL) will highlight the upcoming Canadian Gray Jay Pathfinder R&D smallsat project at CANSEC 2019 in Ottawa on stand 1036 — this event is being held fro May 30 to 31 in the EY Centre in Ottawa, Canada.

Gray Jay is a formation flying smallsat constellation being developed by SFL for the Department of National Defence’s science and technology organization, Defence Research and Development Canada (DRDC), to support Arctic surveillance technology demonstration under the All-Domain Situational Awareness (ADSA) program.

In August of 2018, the Government of Canada awarded Phase One of the C$15 million project to SFL to develop the Gray Jay microsatellites. SFL, a self-sustaining specialty lab established in 1998 at the University of Toronto Institute for Aerospace Studies (UTIAS), is one of the world’s leading developers of next-generation smaller satellites featuring advanced attitude control and formation-flying technology — critical capabilities for the Gray Jay project.

Surveillance solutions support the Government of Canada’s ability to exercise sovereignty in the North and provide a greater awareness of safety and security issues, as well as transportation and commercial activity in Canada’s Arctic. These objectives have been outlined in Canada’s defence policy: Strong, Secure, Engaged.

The SFL microsatellites being developed for Gray Jay will include multiple sensors on a constellation of microsatellites operating in close formation in LEO to allow for quick and timely detection and identification of surface or airborne targets. These concurrently obtained sensor observations are expected to improve the responsiveness of detection and follow up, which may not be straightforward or timely when individual sensors are located on non-collaborating satellites.

SFL has built more than 25 smallsats with more than 100 cumulative years of successful operation in orbit. Many of these missions have included SFL’s trusted attitude control and formation-flying technologies.

Ball Aerospace, a partner in the new NASA Green Propellant Infusion Mission (GPIM) announced their Ball Aerospace-built small spacecraft arrived in Florida today to prepare for a June launch on board a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket. GPIM is NASA’s first opportunity to demonstrate a new “green” propellant and propulsion system in orbit – an alternative to conventional chemical propulsion systems.

GPIM is a sustainable and efficient approach to spaceflight, and the new propellant will demonstrate the practical capabilities of a Hydroxyl Ammonium Nitrate fuel and oxidizer blend, called AF-M315E. This innovative, low toxicity, “green” propellant was developed by the Air Force Research Laboratory. GPIM is part of NASA’s Technology Demonstration Missions program within the Space Technology Mission Directorate.

Dr. Makenzie Lystrup, vice president and general manager, Civil Space, Ball Aerospace stated that GPIM was a truly collaborative effort, working with their partners, NASA, Aerojet Rocketdyne, Air Force Research Laboratory, U.S. Air Force and SpaceX. They are proud to be part of this historic mission to test a new ‘green’ propellant on board Ball’s flight-proven small satellite, helping to provide science at any scale.

Ball Aerospace is responsible for system engineering; flight thruster performance verification; ground and flight data review; spacecraft bus; assembly, integration and test; and launch and flight support. The GPIM bus uses the smallest of the Ball Configurable Platform (BCP) satellites, which is about the size of a mini refrigerator, and was built in just 46 days. The BCP provides standard payload interfaces and streamlined procedures, allowing rapid and affordable access to space with flight-proven performance.

Lystrup added they have shown that Ball can provide small, fast and affordable solutions with excellent performance and now they’re excited to do that for NASA.

There are currently two BCP small satellites performing on orbit: STPSat-2, which launched in Nov. 2010, and STPSat-3, which launched in November 2013. The two STP satellites were built for the U.S. Air Force Space Test Program’s Standard Interface Vehicle (STP-SIV) project. Ball also has two BCP small satellites in development for NASA’s Imaging X-Ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE) and Spectro Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer (SPHEREx) missions.