Australia Launches New Era for Space Innovation

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00:00A new Space Innovation Institute was launched in Australia this morning.

00:04It's aimed at boosting research and development as well as leveraging space technology to lift the country's sagging productivity.

00:12Bloomberg's Paul Allen joins us now.

00:14Paul, what's this expected to do for the Australian space industry?

00:20Averill, in short, hopefully increase its size.

00:23It's one of the goals of the government to triple the size of the Australian space industry by 2030.

00:28Coming off, admittedly, what might be a fairly low base.

00:32So this was announced today.

00:33The Australasian Space Innovation Institute announced at the International Aeronautical Congress,

00:39which is a major space conference which is taking place in Sydney starting from today.

00:44So this is an independent body.

00:45It's a not-for-profit.

00:46Its purpose is to link research and development and end users and industry as well.

00:51Also improve Australia's sovereign capability and leverage some of the space technology and defence and national security as well.

00:58And part of the goal here is also to reduce Australia's dependence on foreign data and satellites.

01:04There's already an example of this underway.

01:06The Takahe project with New Zealand would look to advance maritime security

01:10and improve responses to illegal fishing, natural disasters and security risks as well.

01:16Now, the word Australasian is an interesting one and the participation of New Zealand interesting too,

01:20because you see there on the screen the first test launch of the Gilmore space rocket earlier this year.

01:27Flew only for a few seconds before exploding.

01:31That's not uncommon.

01:32Space launches are notoriously difficult to achieve.

01:35But you compare that with New Zealand, a far smaller country.

01:37It's been its own homegrown rocket lab, which is listed in the US,

01:43has been successfully launching rockets for quite some time now.

01:47Anyway, let's talk about the Institute a little bit more,

01:50because we're joined by the CEO of the Australasian Space Innovation Institute, Professor Andy Koronius.

01:57Professor, thanks so much for joining us today.

01:59I do want to start with that perception.

02:01Is it fair or otherwise to describe Australia's space industry as nascent or lagging in some respects?

02:09How does it compare to other developed nations?

02:13As a percentage of GDP, it's actually not that far behind, but it can do better.

02:20The Australian space industry in the last six years has been growing dramatically from a very low base, of course.

02:30But we believe that through the innovation system, and we have world-class universities,

02:37we have world-class research centers, and what this institute will do is basically connect all of those to industry as well as the end users,

02:48because we feel that space is not only about lifting the productivity of a sector like the space industry,

02:56but it actually underpins the productivity of every other industry.

03:01And as you know, we are very big in agriculture.

03:04We're very big in mining.

03:05We want to make sure that our farmers can grow more for less using space as well as space data,

03:13as well as new AI techniques.

03:16But also our miners, we want to do mining far smarter than we do at the moment,

03:24as well as more safely, more sustainably, as well as many other applications.

03:28As you've mentioned, the Takahai mission with New Zealand is about maritime monitoring.

03:36We have, between New Zealand and Australia, we actually have responsibility for 16% of the globe.

03:42Our economic exclusion zones are huge.

03:46Using just ships and aeroplanes costs us billions every year.

03:52And, of course, they have a lot of blind spots because they cannot cover all of those vast areas.

03:59Using radar satellites, you can actually monitor, particularly constellations of satellites,

04:05you can monitor vessels, the vessel movements from space, day or night, cloud or clear.

04:14And, therefore, you are able to save money, but also be able to really safeguard our sovereignty,

04:22as well as our national interests, like fishing rights and so on.

04:29And, at the same time, of course, being able to monitor and track illegal activities.

04:36Yeah, well, the potential and end uses are fairly clear.

04:39But how big is the gap between ideas and reality at the moment?

04:44And what can your institute do to close that gap?

04:46It's a fair question.

04:50However, we have already been working through another program for the last six and a half years,

04:58the SmartSat Cooperative Research Center, funded by the Australian government.

05:03And we have done quite a lot of work in that.

05:05We've brought together more than 150 organizations and developed more than 200 projects,

05:14developed a lot of technologies.

05:16And what we are aiming to do now is to actually bring, stitch all of those technologies together,

05:23connect the activities, and build AI-enabled systems, AI-enabled applications,

05:30because we feel that that is one of the biggest opportunities for Australia to play,

05:36much more so than manufacturing satellites, for instance.

05:42You talk there about weaving in AI to these technologies.

05:49What are you seeing in terms of the competition for talent in shaping the Australian space industry?

05:56The Australian capability in AI is actually very strong.

06:04We have a number of centers in robotics, a number of centers in AI.

06:09We are punching above our weight in R&D in that area.

06:15But what Australia has not been able to do thus far is take the magnificent work that the universities do

06:22in producing inventions and new algorithms, machine learning and so on,

06:28to actually create impact for various applications.

06:33In other words, a lot of our capabilities actually go to North America or to Europe or Asia to be commercialized.

06:41We want to change that so that we are able to, in the investment that we've made for those capabilities,

06:48we want to be able to be beneficiaries as well.

06:50You alluded there earlier to reducing the dependence on foreign technology,

07:00really about sovereignty, about national interests as well.

07:03How are you thinking about the current geopolitical backdrop

07:07and how this might evolve some of the developments at the Institute?

07:11Australia relies very much on pretty much for everything in terms of defense and national security on foreign capabilities.

07:24And we are really very good users, very good procurement agencies for others' kind of assets.

07:34What we want to do there is to actually change that, not only to be able to be a little bit more resilient than we are.

07:41We can never basically develop all of the technologies that we need,

07:45but to be able to develop some of the areas, particularly in the areas in which we actually have some advantage,

07:52to be able to bring those to the table so that we are just not always buyers of capability,

07:59but actually contributors.

08:00And we do have some capabilities in optical communications, in terminals,

08:06and many other areas where we can bring to the table.

08:10Some of those are world class.

08:11In fact, some of the projects, outputs from the SmartSight Cooperative Research Center

08:17are now tested in the United States and other countries.

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