Aussie dish serves up second helping for moon mission
Almost 60 years after playing a key role in the first moon landing, Australia is reaching for the stars again as NASA launches its latest lunar mission.
A South Australian dinner has been tasked with helping with the Artemis II mission, a follow-up to the country’s efforts during the 1969 landings that inspired a film.
There are four astronauts in the Orion crew capsule attached to a NASA rocket that launched from Cape Canaveral in Florida early on Thursday, Australian time.
South Australia-based aerospace company Southern Launch is tracking Orion during its 10-day mission, during which the United States plans to send humans around the moon for the first time since 1972.
Southern Launch is using the TALON telemetry dish at the Koonibba Test Range site at the state’s westernmost tip to track Orion decades after Australia’s famous 1969 effort.
The Parkes radio telescope, then known as The Dish in NSW, supported the first mission to land humans on the moon, tracked Apollo 11 and collected telemetry and TV signals from the historic moonwalk.
Southern Launch general manager Lloyd Damp said his company’s antenna was much smaller and did not have the same functionality as the Parkes installation made famous in the 2000 movie The Dish.
However, the SA antenna provides important information for the mission by using a change in frequency or pitch, called a Doppler signal, to calculate the Orion vehicle’s speed.
“The sound an emergency vehicle’s siren makes when it’s coming towards you is different from the sound it makes when it’s moving away from you,” Mr Damp told AAP on Thursday, explaining the signal.
“We can calculate how fast the spacecraft is going in exactly the same direction.”
The Doppler signal from the Orion spacecraft is sent to NASA through Southern Launch’s partners, Raven Defense, to help fly the vehicle to the moon.
Artemis II is conducting a crewed flight around the Moon and testing critical systems ahead of future Moon landings.
“So today is a very exciting day for us, supporting Artemis, which is absolutely inspiring a whole generation,” Mr Damp said.
“I didn’t grow up in a generation that went to the moon.
“But my kids are, and they are so excited about space… because humanity is taking these huge steps forward.”
Flinders University Professor Rodrigo Praino said NASA’s long-term, multi-mission Artemis program aimed at returning humans to the moon provided a huge opportunity for the Australian space industry.
“They are talking about landing on the Moon by 2028 and using the base there as a stepping stone to go to Mars,” he told AAP.
He said Australia needed to develop strategies and create plans to contribute to the NASA programme.
“This is a huge opportunity for Australia… for anyone interested in all kinds of space technology and space infrastructure,” said Prof Praino, director of the Jeff Bleich Center for Democracy and Disruptive Technologies.
Southern Launch, which also operates a second spaceport on SA’s Eyre Peninsula, has been launching experimental rockets for international customers for several years.
An important drug that one of its customers is developing is for chemotherapy.
“The really cool thing is that these satellites produce medicine while in orbit and they need a special place to land,” Mr. Damp said.
“If you can make a purer anti-cancer drug in space, suddenly the quality of life for people who have to take these terrible chemicals becomes much better.”
SA was an ideal location because the landings required wide open, desolate areas and little air and sea traffic.
Mr. Damp said the company had been building relationships for eight years and was looking for ways to enable high-tech, high-speed operations while airlines were operating.
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