The Department of Industry, Science, Innovation, and Resources in conjunction with the Australian Space Agency has awarded Saber Astronautics a $6 Million grant for the development of Australia’s Mission Control Center. This project received grant funding from the Australian Government’s Space Infrastructure Fund.
Branded as the “Responsive Space Operations Center” (or RSOC for short), Saber will bring next generation space mission control technologies to make it easier to fly new spacecraft. Capabilities include concurrent design, pre-flight testing, launch support, as well as live operations during flight. The RSOC will also be the first professional control center in the world to use machine learning in spacecraft day-to-day operations along with 3D gaming technologies.
Saber’s CEO, Dr Jason Held, explained this as a willingness for Australia to leap ahead. “Running Australia’s new Mission Control Center is one of the most exciting opportunities we’ve ever had. It shows that the Australian Space Agency as a brand new space program is indeed looking to do business differently, tackle the hard problems, and make a serious play for space. For Saber Astronautics, this is nothing less than our dream job.”
The RSOC will sit on the ground floor of the McEwin Building at Lot Fourteen in Adelaide and have a baseline capability ready in six months. This complements the new home of the Australian Space Agency and will work closely with to the Australian Space Discovery Center, providing education to the general public on the importance of Australia’s growing aspirations in space, as well as exciting STEM opportunities. Australians will be able to design their missions in the same place that they will fly, and gain new missions access to advanced operational capabilities.
The RSOC is supported by a select marketplace of telescopes and dish networks to track Australia’s future fleet of spacecraft. This will be a new model for the Australian space community to access dish capability from suppliers worldwide. Saber Astronautics will also engage with Deloitte as their preferred service provider to design secure business models relating to this marketplace. Deloitte will also provide expertise in cyber security and experience design to help Saber realise their vision for Australia’s Mission Control Center.
Deloitte Australia’s lead partner for space advisory, Steve Rayment, said: “We are excited to be bringing the breadth of Deloitte’s global capabilities to support Saber in accelerating commercial innovation in the Australian space sector. As we have shown with the Gravity Challenge, Deloitte is strongly committed to bringing together innovators with the public and private sectors to create new business opportunities in space. We are delighted to be working with Saber, a leader in Mission Operations.”
Once completed the RSOC will support day-to-day mission control for small and medium enterprises, using Saber's technologies to reduce risk for investors. Australia has nearly 100 new space companies formed inthe last three years and the Space Agency has the goal of growing to a $12Bn industry by 2030.
“We are extraordinarily pleased to have so much support from national and international capability to help propel Australia’s mission control capability to the next level”, said Saber’s Australian Director, Andreas Antoniades. “This collaboration and grant opportunity brings together pioneering space companies, universities and government institutions to help build the future for our nation in space.