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posted by janrinok on Tuesday February 14 2017, @11:24PM   Printer-friendly
from the turning-space-upside-down dept.

They're piping out our space data!

Any nation that hopes to have a space program needs to be able to keep an eye on its orbiting assets at all times. This means that Australia has become a key link in the global chain of ground-based tracking stations.

The US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has a deep space tracking facility at Tidbinbilla in the ACT, managed by the CSIRO, and the European Space Agency (ESA) has one in New Norcia, Western Australia. The New Norcia station plays a further role as it picks up and tracks the ESA launches from French Guiana as they curve across the Indian Ocean on their way to Earth orbit or beyond.

This means that Australia plays a critical role in many other countries' space programs. Right now, about 40 space missions – including deep space planetary explorers, Mars rovers, solar observatories and astronomical space observatories – are routinely downlinking their data through radio dishes on Australian soil. This uniquely acquired data is then piped out of the country to the eagerly waiting US and European scientific communities, bypassing our own.

If Australia is to capitalise on its strengths in space tracking as well as space science, and is to get on board with the burgeoning commercial space industry, it's time that we considered forming a space agency of our own.


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  • (Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 15 2017, @12:31AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 15 2017, @12:31AM (#467174)

    If you improve the beer, then I guarantee you'll find multiple genders in the same bathroom (indeed, in the very same stall!).

    Moreover, people will become so chill, that their lowered productivity will allow the wombat's natural habitat to make a come back.

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