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Getting into space: Australia and NASA’s Artemis mission

Last week was an important one for the global space community. The annual International Astronautical Congress (IAC) was held in Washington DC from 21 to 25 October. And this year’s not only the 70th for the IAC, but also the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission’s landing on the moon. The theme of the 2019 IAC was ‘Space: The power of the past, the promise of the future’.

The future focus at the conference centred on a return to human space exploration beyond low-earth orbit (LEO). The key message was that the US is now heading back to the moon under NASA’s Artemis program. The plan is for Artemis 3 to land in the Aikten Basin in the moon’s south polar region by the second half of 2024. That mission will bring US astronauts back to the lunar surface for the first time since December 1972, put the first woman on the moon, and begin the establishment of a long-term permanent human presence there throughout the 2020s as a step towards crewed missions to Mars by 2035. As part of Artemis, NASA plans to establish the Gateway space platform in lunar orbit to support multiple missions across the surface over a 15-year period.

Australia has a key role to play in the next era of human space travel and exploration—to the moon, to Mars and beyond. The Australian Space Agency and our growing commercial space sector were well represented at the IAC. We’re a new space power that’s rapidly making up for lost time since the decline of early Australian space activities in the 1960s, so our progress is of interest to the international space community.

Just before the conference, the Australian Space Agency signed an agreement with NASA to provide direct support for Artemis. As part of that initiative, the Australian government will provide funding of $150 million for our space industry sector. This will enable Australian companies to play a role in supporting lunar missions on Gateway and on the surface.

Australia has traditionally had a ground-based space program, providing a ‘suitable piece of real estate’ (to borrow from the late Desmond Ball) for space tracking and space situational awareness facilities in support of other nations’ activities in orbit. While the ground segment is important, our fixation on limiting our activities to the earth’s surface is changing, and now there’s intense interest in—and government support for—Australian commercial space companies delivering a space segment, including locally produced satellites and commercial space launches. NASA’s return to the moon, with international partners like Australia supporting that endeavour, will open up new opportunities for Australian companies to develop new services to directly support operations on the lunar surface and in cislunar space (around the moon).

There’s huge potential for Australian companies to undertake commercial resupply of NASA lunar bases as well as Gateway, in much the same way that commercial space companies are now directly supporting the International Space Station in LEO. For example, an Australian space launch provider could send payloads into orbit from either Nhulunbuy in the Northern Territory or Whalers Way in South Australia.

And, under the agreement with the New Zealand government signed at the IAC, Australia can also potentially contract out to Rocket Labs to launch from the North Island. That agreement is likely to spur Australian space launch companies to work hard to ensure that they’re competitive for launch contracts. From LEO, with additional rocket stages, payloads can easily be sent on to lunar orbit and to the lunar surface.

The vision of Australia as a space power launching our own spacecraft on our own launch vehicles from our own launch sites and landing on the moon is a far cry from the inaction that characterised our approach to space for much of the past decades. The transformation of our approach to space is timely, deep and inspiring.

The second big take-away from the IAC is the rapid growth of the commercial space sector as a cutting-edge innovator. The key commercial space actors all presented at plenary meetings. Jeff Bezos from Blue Origin highlighted his vision for humanity as a spacefaring species, as did SpaceX. Bezos emphasised ‘millions of people living in space’ on space colonies, while SpaceX talked about lunar and Mars colonies, and its Starship vehicle as the means to build them.

These two big ‘new space’ giants will lead, but their approach is now being emulated by many smaller companies. A common theme is the importance of reusable rocket technology to reduce cost to orbit and improve responsive launch. Reusability is being embraced by New Zealand’s Rocket Lab, Firefly Aerospace, and even Chinese commercial space start-ups.

This contrasts with NASA’s approach of sticking with big expendable rockets such as the Space Launch System that’s the basis for getting Artemis to the moon. The risk is that delays and cost overruns in delivering the system could delay the Artemis schedule for a 2024 landing, as could the current presidential impeachment battle. The potential to extend the plan out to 2028 is there, but, as NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine noted, the longer the delay, the greater the political risk that Artemis could be cancelled.

This is why the rapidly growing commercial space sector remains important globally and for Australia: it can act as a backup if NASA can’t deliver the SLS on time for Artemis 3 in late 2024.

The Australian Space Agency’s primary role is to encourage the growth of our commercial space sector—it isn’t a mini-NASA down under that builds rockets and satellites and flies missions. The Australian government now has a golden opportunity to assist our commercial space sector in expanding its ability to not only participate in humanity’s next great adventure but be competitive and prosperous in coming decades. The return to the moon and the next steps—to Mars in the 2030s and perhaps beyond in subsequent decades—are a journey that’s just beginning. Australia is well positioned to play a vital role in this most important endeavour.

Australia’s moonshot

In another sign that the government is serious about supporting new Australian endeavours in space, the Australian Space Agency and NASA have inked an agreement covering Australian participation in the US ‘Artemis’ project to return astronauts to the lunar surface in 2024. The partnership was announced during the state visit by Prime Minister Morrison to the US last week. The return to the moon is a key stepping-stone in the US government’s plan to send crewed missions to Mars sometime in the 2030s.

Australia’s participation is an activity that falls under the ‘moonshot’ goal noted in the Australian Space Agency’s civil space strategy, released in April. ‘Moonshot’ missions were emphasised as important for building industry and international partnerships and for supporting the growth of STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths) in education to sustain Australian space activities in coming decades.

As part of the agreement, the Australian government is investing $150 million over five years in boosting the Australian space industry’s capacity to serve as a key supplier to the US space sector. That investment will be an opportunity for continuing the expansion of Australia’s space sector and asserting our role internationally as a new space power. It will contribute towards the Australian Space Agency realising its objective of tripling the size of the sector to 30,000 jobs by 2030.

So, what might Australia contribute to the US return to the moon, and eventual missions to Mars?

As noted in the civil space strategy, Australia’s expertise in robotics and automation—stemming from the mining sector—will make it a valuable partner for the US on the moon. Going back to the moon in the next decade won’t just be a ‘flags and footprints’ exercise. Looking beyond the planned landing of Artemis 3 in 2024, the objective for NASA is to establish a permanent human presence on the lunar surface by 2028 over 12 Artemis missions.

Establishing and sustaining lunar base facilities will require robotic systems that can be remotely operated either from the lunar ‘Gateway’ mini–space station in lunar orbit, or potentially from earth. Under some circumstances, those operations could be managed directly from Australia. Humans and robots will be working side by side on the lunar surface, and Australian companies can contribute directly to those operations.

Our potential to play a central role in this area doesn’t just end on the moon. Extracting resources from near-earth asteroids—which can be reached from the moon more easily and cheaply than they can from the earth’s deep gravity well—is a task for robots, not humans. Imagine companies such as BHP and Rio Tinto mining an asteroid—or lunar regolith—for valuable metals, minerals, gases and liquids.  There would be no need for people in spacesuits driving diggers—robots conducting the operations could be managed from Australia. Our use of robots and autonomous systems in terrestrial mining can be equally applied in space.

Australia can also contribute to the Artemis project by supporting Australian companies undertaking ‘leapfrog R&D’, which could then generate sustained growth across the entire space industry sector. Private companies, as well as government agencies such as the CSIRO and Geoscience Australia, and the Defence Science and Technology Group, are engaged in research and development in areas that could directly support Artemis—including advanced rocket technology, new high-tech materials and space medicine.

The return to the moon in the 2020s, and the prospect of crewed missions to Mars in the 2030s, will generate technological innovation, especially given the heavy involvement of a broad range of commercial space companies. In this sense Artemis is very different from the Apollo mission, which was almost exclusively a NASA-run effort, supported by major aerospace primary contractors.

Artemis, by contrast, can fully exploit technological innovations coming from the expanding commercial space sector—including small commercial space start-ups. Australia’s space industry companies need to move quickly to benefit from the government’s decision to support Artemis, because the return to the moon is set to be just the beginning of a long period of growth in human space activity.

Continuous commercial support will be required for lunar bases, and for sustaining cost-effective, regular and safe transport from the earth to the moon. Don’t expect large commercial space ventures such as SpaceX and Blue Origin to cede this opportunity to NASA. Although NASA is clearly taking the lead with Artemis, it will ultimately depend on commercial support from a variety of companies, both US and foreign. That’s where Australia’s space industry sector can play a critical and profitable role.

The challenges become more apparent as the next big goal—getting to Mars—looms closer. Human missions to Mars will be an order of magnitude more complex than a return to the moon, given the distance involved. Orbital dynamics prevent a rapid transit and equally rapid return (for those who like equations, the complexity of earth–Mars transfer is explained here). Australia’s space industry can play a role even here, through investment in leapfrog R&D sectors, particularly biomedicine to treat the physical and psychological effects of extended spaceflight on humans.

What about direct involvement of Australian astronauts? Is there a case for Australians to participate in future lunar and Mars missions? Yes.

The next generation of would-be Australian astronauts are in secondary school (in terms of getting to the moon), or maybe yet to be born (for Mars), but it’s vital that the Australian Space Agency, and Australia’s commercial space sector, remain open to the prospect. One of the agency’s key goals, as set out in its civil space strategy, is to ‘inspire’ so that it encourages the future workforce and engages the nation as a whole. That can be done most successfully by instilling excitement and interest in younger generations. Promoting STEM in education, and what the agency refers to as ‘moonshot’ missions’, should be a key part of that effort.

The opportunity for an Australian in the 2020s or 2030s to stand on the lunar surface and gaze at the earth in much the same way Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin did in 1969 is not fanciful. Nor is the possibility of Australian astronauts participating in an international mission to Mars in the 2030s. The moment when a young Australian realises such a dream would be truly inspirational for the nation.