Senior engineering and management professional Dr Sanjay Mazumdar has been announced as Executive Director of the four-year Defence Trailblazer for Concept to Sovereign Capability (CSC), a program allocated $50 million by the previous federal government. University of NSW – which leads the Trailblazer with University of Adelaide – described Mazumdar as a “proven chief executive…
Four South Australian companies are putting the final touches on the VS03 mission that will launch a rocket and state-of-the-art payloads into space before the end of the year. Southern Launch, ATSpace, Asension and Inovor Technologies have collaborated on the mission which will see an ATSpace ‘Kestrel I’ rocket launched from the Southern Launch Whalers…
Australia’s electricity grid is being shaken up as states and the Commonwealth embrace renewables. But this also gives Australia a chance to claim back energy monopolies it lost to state owned companies from China and Singapore, argues Shane West. With coal supplying 80 percent of Victoria’s energy, the closing of the Loy Yang power station…
Geelong’s Deakin University engineering students are about to roll out for a test drive one of the most unusual vehicles ever built in this city, once the centre of Ford manufacturing – the car they designed and built for the 2023 World Solar Challenge. The road tests come after a disrupted three years preparation which…
Carbon Fibre road wheel manufacturer Carbon Revolution has outlined an ambitious plan to merge with a US fund, list on a US stock exchange and emerge with a warchest to speed its path to commercialisation. The Geelong company told shareholders that it had signed a non-binding letter of intent to merge with a US special…
Space, Defence and communications manufacturer Electro Optic Systems is in ‘active negotiation’ to supply its remotely operated weapon stations (RWS) to the government of Ukraine. Sale of the company’s RWS systems, which allow machine guns, cannon and rockets to be operated from inside a vehicle or from a remote location, was first flagged in August…
Electrolyser startup Hysata has announced former Australian Chief Scientist Dr Alan Finkel as chair of the company’s Global Advisory Council. Finkel was Chief Scientist for five years until the end of 2020, with current Chief Scientist Dr Cathy Foley his replacement, and has a background including a PhD in electrical engineering, in entrepreneurship, and as…
A team of researchers from Flinders University and Newcastle University has developed a way to measure plastic particles lost from non-stick cookware. The work by the team used a “molecular spectrum approach” for directly visualising and identifying Teflon microplastics and nanoplastics, which are “generally a family member of PFAS” as well as more difficult to…
What were the five biggest stories last week? Here’s what visitors to this site were reading. FIRST DRIVE IN H2X HYDROGEN POWER WARREGO UTILITY About 100 kilometres from Amsterdam in a workshop dedicated to vehicle electrification sits one of two unique hydrogen fuel cell-electric utility vehicles – Australian company H2X Global’s Warrego utility, writes Peter…
By Peter Roberts Few defence ministers have done more for Australian sovereign industry capability than Kim Beazley. Most recently Governor of Western Australia, Beazley as Australian ambassador to Washington pried open US markets for Australian manufactured defence equipment, securing new markets for the likes of BAE Systems Australia’s anti-ship missile decoy rocket, Nulka. Domestically he…
