[ad_1]
Jamie Searle / Stuff
Great South Ground Segment and Engineering Station Manager Robin McNeill is flanked by Labor Party election candidates Rino Tirikatene and Dr. Liz Craig at the official launch of the first commercial satellite tracking antenna Low Earth orbit of New Zealand at the Awarua satellite ground station near Invercargill on Monday.
New Zealand’s first commercial satellite antenna to communicate with low Earth orbit satellites officially opened on Monday at the Awarua satellite ground station near Invercargill.
Great South Ground Segment and Engineering Station Manager Robin McNeill said the high-performance antenna would provide a way for satellite owners to transmit their data to ground or command their spacecraft.
The antenna will speed up access to information.
“This is a big step for the space sector in New Zealand,” McNeill said.
“Instead of waiting one, two, three or four days until we get data from satellites [like previously] we can get it in half an hour. “
READ MORE:
* Waikaia chosen as the place for a rocket launch
* The Southland satellite station is important in the space community.
* School students take a virtual trip to the Southland satellite station
More antennas are planned to be built at the site, along with a mission operations center that will provide services to the University of Auckland for its APSS 1 satellite.
Overseas private sector customers were using the services at the station, McNeill said.
GREAT SOUTH
New Zealand’s first commercial low-Earth orbit satellite tracking antenna, named Great South – 1 at the Awarua satellite ground station near Invercargill. Photo: GRAN SUR
He added that with the new antenna, the Awarua facility would likely generate around $ 1 million in revenue for Great South, Southland’s regional development agency.
Labor candidate for Te Tai Tonga Rino Tirikatene officially inaugurated the new antenna on Monday.
The new antenna was another step forward for New Zealand on the international stage, Tirikatene said.
“We are connected with clients from all over the world who want their teams to stay here… it’s great for Southland and great for Aotearoa.
“Global players who want to do business with us and share our experience only shows that we have an important role to play internationally.”
McNeill said that satellite ground stations play a crucial role in the space industry.
The antenna was capable of supporting New Zealand’s upcoming MethaneSAT satellite, a next-generation satellite designed to detect global methane emissions, and used advanced monitoring systems that had been developed by researchers at the University of Canterbury, McNeill said.
John Hawkins / Stuff
Robin McNeill at the Awarua space tracking station in 2015.
McNeill also announced that Great South was building a new ground station at Ruakaka in Northland.
“A second station in the far north means that we will be able to communicate with spacecraft 1200 kilometers further into the Pacific Ocean, something that is important for some uses of satellites,” he said.
Great South has served the space industry from Awarua, midway between Invercargill and Bluff, since 2008, when it built the ground station facility to support the European Space Agency’s refueling missions to the International Space Station.
McNeill said Great South worked with most of the leading names in the small satellite industry.
Three new antennas are currently being built for foreign clients and contracts are being negotiated to install more antennas next year, he said.
