Adelaide to host nanosatellite centre
Adelaide’s western suburbs will soon host a mission control centre for dozens of tiny satellites.
Nanosatellite company Fleet Space Technologies has announced plans to build the centre in the suburb of Beverley.
It is expected to operate 24 hours a day, monitoring and controlling a fleet of 100 tiny satellites that will link a broad range of devices in the growing ‘internet of things’ (IoT).
IoT devices are expected to add a new technological edge to everything from agriculture, mining, oil and gas, to logistics and maritime industries.
“We are talking about a farmer who wants to deploy a thousand sensors to measure soil moisture, water station, animal tracking, temperature, everything you've got in mind — that would improve the efficiency of how they operate so much,” Fleet Space Technologies CEO Flavia Tata Nardini said.
“It's not because farmers don't want to improve the way they operate, it's because connectivity is absent. 3G or 4G, it's struggled for us in Australia and in the world.”
The project was made possible with a $500,000 grant from the SA Government’s future jobs fund.
Treasurer Tom Koutsantonis said the Government is keen to boost the state's budding space industry.
“Imagine the productivity improvement South Australia can get as we're exporting our produce, knowing we can monitor it in real time as it's being shipped across seas where there's no connectivity,” he said.
“Imagine being able to monitor large stations of cattle and their movement using nanosatellites being launched through a mission control based here in Adelaide.”
Fleet’s mission control centre should be in operation late this year.