Celebrating Australian sovereign capability – how Nova Systems is launching itself into space

Our series – Celebrating Australian sovereign capability – explores the space domain, seen by many as critical for everything from national security to environmental monitoring and the industrial internet of things communications. Here Peter Roberts charts Nova Systems journey from services provider to space technology developer and manufacturer.

Nova Systems Executive General Manager Mission Solutions Andrew Mannix came to the space sector from senior executive roles in defence and the mining sector, with a similar journey from engineering services and technology solutions company to would-be manufacturer underway for Nova Systems itself.

Having consulted in space launch and safety including at Woomera for recent Japanese space missions, the company’s most obvious foray into manufacturing is the not for the feint of heart effort to restart large satellite manufacturing onshore.

While Australia was one of the first countries to launch its own satellites from its own territory with Wresat in 1967, we left satellite manufacturing to others until recently when a number of local start ups began making sovereign small CubeSats.

Mannix said: “It is really more recently that we have progressed into programmes in space of a type that we are taking on now where we are actually doing projects and hardware.

“It is a matter of public record now we are a great advisory and consulting company and now we are certainly the largest Australian owned defence major services provider – that’s one half of our strategy to continue to be really good at doing that.

“In space we are taking that strategy seriously and starting to conduct some really good hardware contracts as well to push into the space area.”

Earlier this week Nova Systems was named as a partner in the AROSE consortium among one of two teams to receive federal government grants to design early-stage prototypes of a semi-autonomous Moon rover, as part of plans for an Australian-US mission to the Moon.

Nova Systems has also part of a $71 million investment with Electro Optic Systems (EOS), UTS Tech Lab, Gilmour Space, and the federal and NSW governments to establish Australia’s first Satellite Manufacturing Hub for larger Earth Observation satellites in the 100 to 500 kg range.

Nova Systems and EOS plan a 4,000 square metre facility at the South Jerrabomberra Regional Jobs Precinct in NSW.

Mannix said: “We are currently working through the five percent design (the drawings and specifications for the project at five percent completion).

“We are doing a de-risking stage to achieve a five percent design design, to achieve certainty over cost so we can finish off the Modern Manufacturing Initiative grant negotiations with confidence.”

The immediate target mission is to win the contract to build the Australian Earth observation mission, a satellite with a cross-calibration radiometer which can both atmospheric and marine data.

“That is the most interesting mission in the near term, but there are a number of other Earth observation satellites that are due to be built in the region that would be of interest to us.

“Of course there are future defence contracts that will also require satellites in that class and size.”

Australia still relies on using data from other nations’ satellites to secure much of our Earth observation data – information critical to everything from weather prediction, bushfire monitoring and mining.

Mannix said Australia having its own sovereign satellites that it could control and task was an exciting opportunity.

“When you talk about the sovereign need I think it would be critical to have our own situational awareness, where we own the data and we control the mission, and Australia gets to choose what it sees from space.

“We have assets like Wedgetail and JORN that allow us to provide surveillance over own approaches from a terrestrial perspective, but as yet we don’t have missions in space that allow us to provide situational awareness.

“So I think that is a logical and important step for Australia.

“Ukraine and the current regional pressures have certainly highlighted the need for us to have our own missions and control our own data.”

The RAAF operates six E-7A Wedgetail aircraft from Williamtown, near Newcastle which provide airspace battle management capabilities, while the Jindalee Operational Radar Network (JORN) is an over-the-horizon radar (OHR) network that can monitor air and sea movements up to 3,000 kilometres away.

Finally Nova Systems and Perth’s Curtin University are jointly developing a prototype passive radar system that uses the emissions from FM radio stations and TV stations to detect signals reflected off objects in space.

Based on the Murchison Wide Field Array, the partners are installing an initial 512 antennas an Nova Systems’ Space Precinct at Peterborough in South Australia (pictured), with plans to ultimately install 2,400 antennas.

The Murchison Wide Field Array was built by astrophysics to look into deep space for new asteroids, who also found that they could detect and position other objects in low and medium Earth orbit.

Mannix said: “So we are seeing with our prototype some really great results, we are getting some fabulous results.

“We are using sovereign knowledge to develop a sovereign space surveillance radar that will be wholly Australian owned – it will give us Australia’s own data stream from Australian assets, wholly owned by an Australian company and university.

“It gives us a fabulous picture of what is going on up in space and the early results are quite amazing.”

A possibility for the partners is that the system could be developed to meet the defence department’s project JP9360 space surveillance requirement. This will involve an amalgamation of a number of defence projects to provide capabilities in threat warning, attribution and detection, tracking, and the ability to characterise natural and man-made objects.

Mannix said: “This instrument could certainly in JP9360. It’s providing exactly the type of data that JP9360 would be seeking.

“That’s the key programme that we are going after and we have had very significant interest (in it).”

Picture: Nova Systems Space Precinct, Peterborough

@AuManufacturing’s editorial series – Celebrating Australian sovereign capability – is brought to you with the support of Nova Systems and Titomic.