Tag Archive for: Northern Australia

North of 26 degrees south and the security of Australia: Views from The Strategist, Volume 4

The 27 essays in the collection demonstrate that Australia’s north—that great sweep of territory from Rockhampton in the east to Onslow in the west, taking in Townsville, Bamaga, Darwin and Broome—is about a whole lot more than even what makes its way into the national debate (borders, quarantine facilities, mining, agricultural and energy projects, and small but key defence facilities).

Between them, the authors of this volume cover proposals for an Indigenous civil defence force to work domestically and in our near region, the opportunities for processing critical minerals and producing rare-earth magnets, a broader way of thinking about and doing nation-building that gets beyond waiting for one big first-mover investor or entrepreneur before anything happens, and, of course, the ways that Australia can better use this huge chunk of the globe’s strategic geography—along with key partners like Japan and the United States.

As thinkers who understand the austere environment of our north, the authors are all distinguished by a sense of opportunity, optimism and even that much-maligned, now neglected word ‘vision’—which history shows is what’s needed to advance the development and prosperity of the north of our continent.

North of 26 degrees south and the security of Australia: Views from The Strategist

North of 26° south and the security of Australia’, a new report by ASPI’s The North and Australia’s Security Program, presents a series of articles by a range of trusted and up and coming authors exploring the continued importance of Northern Australia to national security and defence strategy.

The last time real attention was paid to what our regional environment means for defence in the north of Australia was in Paul Dibb’s 1986 Review of Defence Capabilities and the 1987 Defence White Paper. Following that work, the Australian government invested billions of dollars in bases and bare base infrastructure in the north, with a real focus on the Northern Territory.

The strategic environment since then has changed dramatically.

First, regional nations continue to get richer and more capable, including in their ability to project military power within and beyond their own territories—meaning that near-region partners like Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore are becoming more important in Australia’s security and diplomacy.

Second, great-power competition and potential conflict have returned to the forefront of world affairs. China and the US are now actively engaged in deep strategic competition and arm-wrestling over political, economic and strategic relationships and technological dominance across our Indo-Pacific region.

There are credible prospects of a major military conflict between these great powers over the next couple of decades, which, if it happens, will most likely spill beyond a bilateral conflict into a wider regional war.

Northern Australia’s dispersed critical infrastructure and primary resources remain vulnerable to traditional and non-traditional national security threats. Modern weapon systems put these resources within striking distance of conventional weapons, and they’re also susceptible to hybrid warfare strategies like that used by Russia in Ukraine.

While Australia has a long-term defence capability plan, we need to continue to test our assumptions about the defence of northern Australia and the north’s significance to national security. On paper, government has made a strong declaratory commitment to northern Australia. But there is evidence of a widening gap between declaratory policy and Defence’s activities in the North.

This report provides much needed contemporary analysis of the criticality of the North to Australia’s national security and defence.

Tag Archive for: Northern Australia

Australia’s space future in the north

Australia is a lucky country when it comes to the potential opportunities for space launch. Its geography means that sites close to the equator, which are sparsely populated and enjoy stable weather patterns, are ideal for establishing a sovereign launch capability. Launching close to the equator enables a rocket to gain velocity from the earth’s rotation, making it less expensive to get a payload into equatorial orbit. Australia should not waste this competitive advantage.

In my new ASPI report, Australia’s north and space, released today, I discuss the importance of northern Australia to our space future. Both the Northern Territory and Queensland are well placed for launches, with two major sites. The Arnhem Space Centre at Nhulunbuy, near Gove in the NT, and Abbot Point at Bowen in Queensland are being established to derive maximum benefit from Australia’s geography. Others have been suggested, including a proposed launch site near Weipa in northern Queensland known as Space Centre Australia.

The report also examines Western Australia’s role in space. The state’s south coast favours launch into polar and sun-synchronous orbit, and a proposed privately owned launch site at Albany is being promoted as a future option by WA Spaceport.

The report notes that South Australia is well placed for launch into polar and sun-synchronous orbit, and Southern Launch is finalising its site at Whalers Way to support orbital launches.

All three northern states are also well placed to support space activities besides launches, including ground facilities such as spacecraft telemetry, tracking and control, space domain awareness, and payload development and integration. Co-location of ground elements close to launch sites in space hubs makes great sense. The development of such hubs will help the commercial space industry to expand and reduce the length of supply chains.

What could emerge is a complete space ecosystem spanning from design and fabrication of launch vehicles and satellites, through to payload integration, launch and post-launch support of space activities. That brings the potential of ‘space coasts’—where commercial space activity is concentrated and enjoys rapid growth—as the launch market expands to service megaconstellations of satellites in earth orbit, as well as lunar logistics.

The report begins by looking forward 20 years, suggesting a future scenario where Australia’s space sector is contributing to establishing a permanent human presence on the moon, with Australian astronauts on the lunar surface. In this scenario, launch sites across the country could support humanity’s future in space with regular launches and a flourishing space industry near them. It’s a future that goes beyond the dreams of the early leaders of the Australian space industry—and the plans of the Australian Space Agency—but it’s within our grasp.

That positive look forward presents a starting vision of where Australia as a nation should aim to be in space. However, there are challenges ahead if we are to achieve that vision. Without a national space policy, negative competition could develop between states rather than national coordination. The absence of a national space strategy must be addressed. The report lays the foundations for two follow-on papers—one on a national space strategy and the other making the case for space—to be released by the end of 2023.

The report also notes worrying cuts in government funding for space, most notably the cancellation of the national space mission for earth observation. That, combined with cutbacks in funding for space projects in the 2023–24 budget, and the lack of progress on a national space policy, is causing concern within the space sector about the risk of momentum being lost. It’s vital that Australia’s space community work together to avoid that outcome. Failure to do so will see us slip back into dependency as that positive future fades away.

The report notes the importance of Defence’s focus on space as an operational domain and argues that a sovereign launch capability is necessary to allow Australia to share more of the burden in orbit and strengthen space deterrence through increased resilience and assured access. Australia must do more than simply provide ground-based support of allied space capabilities. It must directly increase its own role in space by expanding space domain awareness and, most importantly, establishing a sovereign launch capability.

A sovereign launch capability will avoid the risks of overdependency on foreign capabilities and ensure responsive space access for both Australia and its allies. It will also allow for quick augmentation, and if necessary, reconstitution, of space capability in a conflict.

The commercial space sector, the Australian Space Agency, Defence and the scientific community must together present a coherent and comprehensive case for space to government. This will require the resumption of work towards a national space policy, to be completed within the current term of government. The goal should be one coherent strategy that brings together commercial, civil and defence aspects of Australian space to leverage the country’s natural advantages and that places launch at the centre of national space activities.

A positive space future is out there for us, but it will take all stakeholders to make it happen. Australia can continue to be a rising and important space power, and the momentum gained in recent years need not be lost. The place to start is in the north, and this country must move forward to launch into that future.

Northern launch site could transform Australia’s role in space

The Australian continent is in an excellent position when it comes to launching payloads into space, because its north is so close to the equator. Only Kourou in French Guiana—the European Space Agency’s main launch site—at 5 degrees north latitude and the Alcantara launch centre in Brazil at 2° south latitude (inoperative after a devastating accident in 2003) are closer to the equatorial sweet spot.

It’s Rocket Science 101 that launching close to the equator on an eastern trajectory provides a ‘ΔV’ (‘delta-V’) advantage that gives a rocket a boost in energy from the earth’s rotation from west to east. That translates into either fewer dollars per kilogram or more kilograms per dollar to launch a payload into low-earth orbit (LEO) compared with launch sites at a higher latitude, such as Cape Kennedy in Florida.

The Arnhem Space Centre near Nhulunbuy in the Northern Territory that’s being established by Australian company Equatorial Launch Australia (ELA) is designed to exploit this natural advantage. The site is at latitude 12° south of the equator, and is one of two launch sites to be developed in Australia (the other is operated by Southern Launch at Whalers Way in South Australia, which will be ideal for launching satellites into sun-synchronous orbit).

Nhulunbuy is perfectly placed to deploy small satellites into equatorial LEO at latitudes between 15° south and north of the equator, as well as into all other orbits. The equatorial LEO orbital region will be crucial for supporting the needs of Southeast Asian and Pacific nations and the rapidly developing economies in Africa and South America. Altogether, that’s a market of around 3 billion people, all of whom will need access to satellite capabilities.

For Australia, equatorial LEO is one of the best locations in space for observing our maritime and air approaches and monitoring sea lanes of communication. The requirement for high revisit rates in those missions implies the use of many satellites for tasks such as maritime surveillance. The Nhulunbuy site would need to be available for nearly constant use to launch satellites, update deployed constellations of satellites and expand surveillance capability.

That’s also good news for Australian providers of launch vehicle such as Gilmour Space and Black Sky Aerospace, as well as companies like Hypersonix that are working on sovereign launch capabilities.

The establishment of space launch sites in Australia, and the growth of launch vehicle providers, will mean the end of our dependency on foreign launch providers. Australia will become self-sufficient in assuring space capability for both civil and military requirements. We’ll no longer be at the mercy of long launch schedules with foreign space launch companies. Instead, Australia will be able to enter a potentially lucrative global launch market driven by the rapid growth of satellite megaconstellations in the 2020s. For defence purposes, it means we’ll be able to provide assured space support for the Australian Defence Force and to burden-share with key allies.

A sovereign launch capability will enable Australia to exploit the advantage of the falling cost of space launch, particularly as more commercial launch providers develop reusable rocket systems. Australia is well placed to build its own small satellites and cubesats, and exploit ‘fourth industrial revolution’ manufacturing technologies to constantly update its space capabilities through spiral development. We’ll also be able to build satellites to order for foreign customers, and thus develop a space export industry alongside a domestic one.

The Northern Territory is set to play a crucial role in this future. Although the Australian Space Agency will be headquartered in Adelaide, and a concentration of space industry players will emerge in South Australia, key elements of that industry should also emerge in the NT, and be located close to the Nhulunbuy launch site. In particular, launch vehicle integration and test facilities need to be established close to the launch site. It’s not too far a stretch to envisage a satellite manufacturing industry emerging in Darwin that exploits robotic production lines and 3D printing as well as synthetic design techniques to rapidly design, test and produce small satellite and cubesat constellations. Co-locating space industry with space launch sites would stimulate the NT’s high-tech sector.

The ELA launch site at Nhulunbuy could also offer launch services to overseas partners. Key defence partners such as the US, Japan and Southeast Asian states could conceivably launch payloads from Nhulunbuy on their own launch vehicles, and ELA recently signed an agreement with NASA to launch sounding rockets from the launch site in 2020. Looking ahead, it’s quite possible that reusable vehicles launched from elsewhere on the planet could be recovered and then prepared for a new mission launched from Nhulunbuy. With SpaceX now regularly recovering the first stages of its Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy boosters, and with plans to fully reuse the ‘Starship Super Heavy’ launch vehicle, Nhulunbuy doesn’t need to be limited to small launch vehicles either.

The opportunities for growth are clear, especially if the NT can promote the launch site as a beginning of a new ‘space coast’ that international partners can support. That would also further stimulate the growth of the Territory’s economy beyond the space sector. The emergence of space launch from the NT will create jobs for the local population and, crucially, open up employment opportunities for Indigenous Australians in a vital new high-tech sector of the Australian economy. There’s also considerable potential to grow science, technology, engineering and maths, or STEM, programs in secondary and tertiary education.

The Australian Space Agency recently updated regulatory structures for space launches to make it easier and more cost-effective to send payloads into space from Australian sites. Both the Nhulunbuy and Whaler’s Way sites are well placed to take advantage of this change to become key centres of space activity in the next decade in a way that utterly transforms Australia’s role in space at a global level.

Tag Archive for: Northern Australia

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