Most Kiwis don't know New Zealand has its own space agency - but they should

Monday, 7 May 2018

The Wikipedia entry for New Zealand Space Agency is four sentences long, and even the person in charge acknowledges most Kiwis don't realise it exists. Yet, it is moving faster than most competitors on the planet. Ged Cann reports.

Within a decade, the space industry could become one of this country's largest, New Zealand Space Agency head Peter Crabtree says.

So it may be about time Kiwis started paying attention to an industry poised for a boom, and now estimated to be worth $260 billion annually.

'Most Kiwis would be very surprised to hear we have a space agency – we're working very hard to change that,' Crabtree says with a smile.

The first Rocket Lab test flight failed 100 metres from orbit, but the second was a success, delivering four spacecraft to orbit.

* Rocket Lab pushes back first commercial launch by 'weeks'**

The regular roar of rockets blasting off from Mahia Peninsula will probably do the trick – a spectacle we can expect weekly by 2020, if Rocket Lab chief executive Peter Beck's plans come to fruition.

Between Rocket Lab's research development facility in Auckland and production facility in the United States the little-rocket-company-that-could is already able to churn out a rocket a month.

Meanwhile, the company's staff now numbers about 230, with up to five new arrivals joining weekly.

New Zealand Space Agency head Peter Crabtree says the organisation's commercially led approach was the key to its fast pace.

This country is not likely to remain a one-trick pony for long either, with international companies reportedly eyeing up Kiwi land for ground stations in order to monitor ever-growing constellations of satellites.

So, how has this budding space industry largely flown under the radar?

A Kiwi mentality of just getting on with the job is Crabtree's answer.

But that doesn't mean this country hasn't raised a few eyebrows internationally. The New Zealand Space Agency has attracted partnership opportunities from the likes of Nasa and the European Space Agency.

Rocket Lab's Peter Beck is keen to make space accessible to everyone.

'They have all welcomed us with open arms,' Crabtree says. 'They have been very interested in the New Zealand experience that has been very different from theirs, which has been government-led, science-led, but in New Zealand it has been commercially-led.'

Just last month, Prime Minister Jacinda Arden and German Chancellor Angela Merkel discussed formalising co-operation in space-related research, activities and technologies, particularly in the realm of satellite-based Earth observation for environmental protection, navigation, agriculture, and disaster risk-management purposes.

The worth of the space industry is likely to explode in the coming years, as constellations of miniature cube satellites open up possibilities like global internet coverage, expected within a decade.

Companies will need rockets to get the satellites into orbit, Crabtree says, and ground sites in the southern hemisphere to monitor their investments.

WORKING SMARTER, NOT HARDER

Utilising this growing satellite coverage for the benefit of traditional Kiwi industries is the modus operandi of the Centre for Space Science Technology (CSST), a regional research institute.

Chief executive Steve Cotter says that in the not-too-distant future, winemakers will be able to monitor their grapes without visiting the vines.

Rocket Lab chief executive Peter Beck has made no secret of looking for second launch sites in New Zealand and America.

Farmers would be checking irrigation systems from the comfort of an armchair.

To give an idea of just how much momentum is building, in the decade before CSST formed 181 Earth observation satellites were launched. Last year alone this number topped 230.

The speed these satellites were being developed meant Kiwi-built was a challenge, but there were other opportunities.

Working with the likes of Planet and Spire Global, which operate hundreds of satellites between them, Cotter's team is developing the systems to take the visual feeds and make them available to people on the ground.

'Before there wasn't a distributor, because a lot of people just weren't aware this was available,' Cotter says.

Centre for Space Science Technology chief executive Steve Cotter is optimistic about the future of New Zealand's space industry.

Spire was able to track 300,000 sea vessels, meaning big things for increasing biosecurity as officials are able to see where vessels put in to port, and detect illegal fishers in New Zealand waters.

'You have ships that may say they have come straight from one port, and actually have stopped off at several other ports along the way and picked up biohazards.'

This type of system was already being used internationally.

These satellites have in-built visual tracking, so even if a ship turns off its transponder it won't disappear.

'Our navy is not big enough, nor do we have the funds to have them constantly at sea monitoring, so you team the satellite imagery with the New Zealand Defence Force's ability to act and now we can be much more dilligent.'

Satellites from the likes of Nasa and the European Space Agency have already created new capabilities that could greatly assist in efforts to save the environment.

By scrutinising the non-visible wavelengths created by reflections from toxic blue-green algal blooms you can locate these blooms.

'They make this data available in its raw form, and if you know what to do with this data you can get a lot of information out of it.'

The Electron rocket skipped its third test launch to go straight into commercial operations.

The burgeoning industry has created a reverse brain drain, as Kiwi scientists return to work in their field.

'Now, for the first time, they have an opportunity to come back and a reason to come back because there are actually jobs,' Cotter says..

RETURN OF THE KIWI ROCKET SCIENTISTS

Delwyn Moller is one of those returning.

During her time in the United States she worked at Nasa on multiple missions, helping to develop some of the world's most hi-tech observation equipment.

Delwyn Moller worked at Nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and Nasa itself before returning to New Zealand in February.

When she left Auckland University to do her PHD in Massachusetts 26 years ago, her first job was at Nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), where she stayed for 11 years.

The mission used radar tech to map the topography of Earth, and from there Moller went on to research radar for landing on other planets.

'That was my big space mission, and it was one of the most intense 11 days I've ever had. We had a lot of false launches where it's launch day and the weather's not quite right,' she says.

'We had that happen four or five times … you go through the sequence of the on-orbit checkout and everything checks out, one after the next after the next – then it's my turn. I'm on, and oh boy! Please don't let it be my thing that goes wrong.'

Moller returned to become the director of research at CSST in February, which she described as having a start-up-like atmosphere.

Delwyn Moller conducts field work of earth observation equipment at Yukon flats.

'Rocket Lab and SpaceX etc. have enabled commercial access to space. Before, it was really the bastion of the large space agencies,'

'It's a really interesting time.'

There is yet to be an aerospace degree provider in New Zealand, but that hasn't stopped Auckland University from investing in the next generation of rocket scientists.

Jim Hefkey is the director of the Auckland Program for Space Systems, a voluntary, undergraduate programme tha challenges students from the arts, sciences, engineering and law faculties to create their own space mission.

If the idea flies, the teams are helped to develop a cube satellite to complete their mission.

Jim Hefkey is the director of the Auckland Program for Space Systems, a voluntary, undergraduate programme which challenges students to create and deploy a cube satellite.

'We have the first of those in the lab now, and we are expecting that to be in space around the end of the year,' Hefkey says.

The team will be hitching a ride on one of Rocket Lab's electron rockets.

This first student-designed satellite has a mission that could have big implications for New Zealand – looking for new indicators of imminent earthquakes.

The group, which has set up a company called QuakeTec, will look at measuring electron activity in the upper atmosphere, which research has suggested spikes just before earthquakes as tectonic plates press against each other.

'The students will try and correlate this research into something that's real, and if they could there's a remote possibility it might help to predict earthquakes. It would be one of the tools in the arsenal, it's not an earthquake predictor,' Hefkey says.

The satellite itself is only 10cm long, with four solar panels petals which fold outward after it enters orbit.

New Zealand doesn't have the capacity to make its own satellites from scratch, so Hefkey's team orders the component parts, and has the teams develop the mission-specialised equipment separately.

The programme is still young, launching in 2017, but Hefkey says the eventual goal is to have a new satellite going up every year, with most spending a couple of years in low earth orbit before disintegrating in the atmosphere.

It is just another way New Zealand is exploring the infinite potential of the space industry.