Last Friday, Australian nanosatellite IoT startup Fleet Space opened its nanosatellite first ground station, known as Mission Control South Australia.
The ground station is located at Red Banks Reservoir, Pinkerton Plains, and complements mission control consoles next to Fleet’s South Australian headquarters in Beverley, in Adelaide’s west, and will track and transmit data from nanosatellites in space. The project is partly funded by the South Australian Government, with a matching funding by Fleet.
The ground station will operate for 24 hours a day and will allow Fleet to track and receive data from its own nanosatellites, while providing space startups across Australia and the world with the ability to monitor their own nanosatellites and payloads.
“The ground station will break barriers for space startups locally and abroad, creating opportunities that were previously only available to large organisations. We’re democratising space and advancing global collaboration!” said Flavia Tata Nardini, CEO of Flee.
“We knew it was ambitious to build and operate a world-class ground station in less than six months. It’s a huge achievement for a small startup to receive leasing rights, let alone build a fully functioning mission control centre within this short timeframe,” she added.
In a separate release, Fleet announced that the Australian government has certified its first two satellites, Centauri 1 and 2, for launch later this year. Centauri 1 will be launched aboard India’s PSLV rocket, which Centauri 2 will be on SpaceX’s Falcon 9, along with numerous other CubeSats.
