CRC to manage space debris

Following the receipt of $19.8 million in government funding, the CRC for Space Environment Management will bring together experts from around the world to look at ways to protect around 3000 operational satellites from space debris.

Based at Mt Stromlo Observatory, near Canberra, the CRC is managed by the Space Environment Research Centre (SERC) - a collaboration between government agencies, universities and space industry professionals from Australia, the USA and Japan. Minister for Industry Ian Macfarlane said the CRC will “harness the combined knowledge from a range of prominent science and research organisations and businesses”, including the NASA Ames Research Center, Lockheed Martin, NICT Japan, Optus and EOS Space Systems.

“They will also be joined by experts from both the Australian National University and RMIT University,” Macfarlane said.

The collaborators’ research will focus on tracking space debris, improving predictions of space debris orbits and predicting and monitoring potential collisions in space. As part of this focus, they will develop ways to modify the orbits of space debris to help avert collisions.

“Today, only 10% of 300,000 major space debris objects are monitored, and around a trillion dollars’ worth of space assets risk being transformed from valuable technology to floating space junk if a major collision occurs,” Macfarlane noted.

“International studies show that as the amount of space debris continues to rise, the satellite-reliant technologies that we depend upon every day are at risk of becoming unavailable. 

“This project will research ways to enable affordable monitoring of all major space debris objects, through developing low-cost optical-tracking sensors and better management strategies.

“Australia is a world leader in optical space tracking, a key technology for protecting satellites, and has the existing infrastructure and data for effective research, making it the ideal country to host the CRC,” he concluded.