ABSTRACT. Space technologies have become critical infrastructure for modern economies, underpinning everything from navigation and agriculture to emergency management, environmental stewardship and national resilience. As the Australian Government’s lead agency for civilian Positioning, Navigation and Timing (PNT) and Earth Observation (EO), Geoscience Australia plays a unique role in the national and international space ecosystem. We sit at the intersection of science, government, industry and operational service delivery, transforming next-generation research, data and partnerships into trusted national capabilities that generate real-world impact. Through long-term investment, collaboration and innovation, Geoscience Australia ensures that the benefits of space are translated into practical outcomes for all Australians. This keynote will explore how Geoscience Australia bridges the gap between research and operations, turning scientific discovery into enduring national capabilities. From satellite ground infrastructure and data processing systems to advanced analytics, digital platforms and service delivery, our programs demonstrate how science can be scaled into operational services relied upon every day by governments, businesses, researchers and communities. The presentation will highlight Geoscience Australia’s Positioning Australia program, which delivers accurate, reliable and real-time positioning services across Australia and the broader region. Built on foundations of geodesy, satellite navigation and advanced correction services, the program is enabling positioning accuracy from metres to centimetres. These capabilities support a wide range of applications, including precision agriculture, aviation safety, infrastructure development, transport, mining and emergency response. By providing resilient national positioning infrastructure, the program improves productivity, enhances safety and supports economic growth. The keynote will also showcase Geoscience Australia’s Earth Observation Program, which provides trusted, open and operational satellite data, products and insights spanning close to four decades of change across Australia’s land, water and coastal environments. Through capabilities such as Digital Earth Australia, the program converts vast volumes of satellite imagery into actionable information that supports environmental management, disaster resilience, water security, land monitoring and evidence-based policy. Supporting more than 170 government programs and a wide range of industry applications, the EO Program demonstrates how sustained investment in Earth observation delivers scientific, environmental and economic value. Together, these programs illustrate how Geoscience Australia is bringing the benefits of space down to Earth, creating strategic national infrastructure, fostering innovation and ensuring that research is translated into operational services that strengthen Australia’s economy, environment and society.

ABSTRACT. Australia's unique geographic location places it between two highly dynamic ionospheric regions: the equatorial ionisation anomaly to the north and the auroral zone to the south. Consequently, the Australian ionosphere is influenced by a wide range of phenomena, including equatorial plasma bubbles, strong ionospheric gradients, scintillation, storm-enhanced density structures, and auroral disturbances during geomagnetic storms. These conditions highlight the importance of regional ionospheric modelling, which can resolve local and regional structures that are often underrepresented in global models, providing improved ionospheric specification, situational awareness, and forecasting capability.

Accurate information on ionospheric conditions is essential for positioning, navigation and timing (PNT), HF communications, aviation, satellite operations, and other critical technologies.

Australia is supported by extensive GNSS infrastructure and a relatively dense ionosonde network, providing a strong observational foundation for regional ionospheric monitoring and modelling. However, significant data gaps remain across the surrounding oceans, where satellite-based radio occultation observations play a vital role in extending coverage across the Australian sector and surrounding Indo-Pacific oceans.

This presentation will discuss the complementary roles of GNSS, ionosondes, and satellite observations in characterising the Australian ionosphere, highlighting their strengths, limitations, and contributions to regional specification and forecasting. It will examine the regional modelling frameworks that combine multi-source observations with background models and data-assimilative approaches to improve ionospheric representation, situational awareness, and forecast capability.

ABSTRACT. CSIRO, Australia’s national science agency, undertakes a broad range of space-related research and innovation in areas spanning radio astronomy, satellite Earth observation, space weather science, space situational awareness, lunar exploration, in-situ resource utilisation, and technology R&D. CSIRO operates national and international space facilities including NASA’s Canberra Deep Space Communication Complex and ESA’s New Norcia Tracking Station, the Australia Telescope National Facility, our In-situ Resource Utilisation lunar testbed Facility and our Space Optics Laboratory. The CSIRO Space Program also encompasses the activities of the CSIRO Centre for Earth Observation, such as the EASI data analytics platform and satellite calibration and validation ground-sites, the AquaWatch Australia initiative, which is progressing towards a national water quality monitoring system, and our expanding research in space weather and space situational awareness. This presentation provides some highlights from CSIRO’s space activities over the last year, and demonstrates how we engage with industry, the research community and international partners to grow Australia’s space capabilities and harness the opportunities of space to address major challenges.

ABSTRACT. The Artemis IV and V missions will deploy new lunar seismometers and return lunar samples, creating unprecedented opportunities to investigate the Moon's interior. To maximise the scientific return of these missions, we are focusing on improving our understanding of lunar seismic sources, particularly meteoroid impacts.

We have recently initiated a multidisciplinary project that combines seismology, observational astronomy, and numerical impact modelling to investigate lunar impact flashes. These brief optical events occur when centimetre-scale meteoroids strike the lunar nearside surface and can be observed from Earth as short-lived flashes of light. Through an international collaboration involving France and UK as well as partners associated with NASA, JAXA, and CNSA, we aim to better constrain impact source characteristics and their seismic signatures. By integrating observations with numerical models, this work offers a unique pathway to probe the structure and properties of the lunar crust and to maximise the scientific return of future Artemis seismic investigations.

ABSTRACT. As ambitions to live beyond low Earth orbit become more tangible in the Artemis era, we need enabling technologies that allow humans to survive and thrive remote from Earth. On our planet, ecosystems depend on plants as primary producers. Plants underpin food webs and can supply humans with food, oxygen, clean water, pharmaceuticals, fibres and materials, as well as opportunities for interaction that support behavioural health. The International Space Life Sciences Working Group (ISLSWG) have gathered a collective vision outlining priorities associated with plant science to support a new frontier of human existence (Fountain et. al., 2026 New Phytologist 249: 656-669). Australia, through the ARC Centre of Excellence in Plants for Space, has a leading role in developing these technologies, and in developing the networks and implementation plan required to deliver these technologies within the required timeframe. This presentation will briefly highlight the types of transformative advances enabled by the “laboratory of space”, as well as the frameworks needed to have a viable research and development pipeline in Low Earth Orbit (LEO). It will consider the role, risks and trade-offs required for the use of plants in the context of full mission constraints beyond LEO. Furthermore, it will discuss the need to integrate pathways for the translation of productivity and sustainability improvements in resource limited environments on Earth. Realizing enabling technologies for space exploration will require integrated innovation, spanning predictive modelling, synthetic biology, robust Earth-based analogue platforms, and dependable spaceflight instrumentation for monitoring key biological processes. Progress will be accelerated by a connected national and international community committed to sharing resources, facilities, expertise, and interoperable data. Australia has much to offer the Artemis moonbase through expertise we have across the nation in aligned areas. But it requires that strategic investments are co-ordinated to ensure synergies can be realised and the limited and expensive activities required to support development and testing for space can be prioritised.

ABSTRACT. Innovation often begins when established boundaries are crossed. Space gives us fascinating examples: biology meets microgravity; agricultural research meets the challenge of sustaining life beyond Earth; Earth observation connects orbit with our oceans, land and climate; astronomy and AI meet space situational awareness; and planetary science becomes planetary defence. These combinations can generate new questions and unexpected possibilities, but connection alone is not innovation. Something has to come out of it.

Perhaps the era of celebrating alliances is coming to an end. Australia is already remarkably well connected internationally; many researchers, institutions and companies have partnerships, networks and access to global expertise. The harder question now is what we produce through these connections. Where might distinctive research, technologies or products emerge, and which intersections are worth pursuing further? Drawing on examples from microgravity, agriculture, oceans, Earth observation, space monitoring, law and international collaboration, this lecture explores possible paths that could give the Australian space community its next boost, where existing strengths, new ideas and international connections might come together to create something that matters.

ABSTRACT. Satellites provide essential communications, Earth-observation and positioning services, while national satellite fleets offer evidence of technological and operational capability. However, the number and characteristics of Australian-owned satellites remain uncertain because widely used international catalogues contain inconsistent records and do not provide a consolidated national inventory. This study developed an indicative dataset of Australian-owned space objects launched between 1967 and 2025. Records were collated from the United Nations Index of Objects Launched into Outer Space, Space-Track, the Union of Concerned Scientists Satellite Database, the Nanosats Database and operator sources. Inconsistencies were investigated through additional documentary research and consultation with Australian space researchers. The current inventory comprises 73 catalogued objects, including 71 satellite payloads and two rocket bodies, recorded across 29 fields. By mission purpose, 50 objects are associated with communications, 22 with Science, Technology and Education, and one with geodesy. Excluding the rocket bodies, the 71 payloads comprise 48 commercial, 22 non-profit and one unclassified payload. Among the 70 payloads with recorded orbital classifications, 56 (80.0%) occupy low Earth orbit and 14 (20.0%) occupy geostationary orbit; one payload remains unclassified. Commercial communications satellites form the largest segment, comprising 45 of the 71 payloads (63.4%) and 45 of the 48 commercial payloads (93.8%). University-led and university-partnered CubeSat missions have been a visible component of Australian satellite activity since 2017, although the dataset does not indicate sustained year-on-year growth. The dataset provides a consolidated baseline for examining Australia’s satellite heritage and mission capability while demonstrating the continuing difficulty of establishing authoritative spaceflight records.

ABSTRACT. Astronomy Australia Limited (AAL) is a non-profit organisation whose members are Australian universities and research organisations with significant astronomical research capability. Working closely with national observatories, research infrastructure providers, the astronomy community, and government stakeholders, AAL coordinates strategic investment, collaboration, and planning to advance the priorities of the Australian Astronomy Decadal Plan 2026–2035. While AAL's primary focus is astronomy infrastructure, the growing convergence between astronomy and space activities is creating new opportunities for collaboration in technology development, data-intensive science, communications, space situational awareness, and international partnerships.

This presentation will introduce AAL and its role in supporting nationally significant research infrastructure, including major facilities such as the SKA-Low telescope, the Anglo-Australian Telescope, and astronomy data and computing capabilities. It will highlight AAL's growing engagement with the space sector through initiatives such as the Astronomy–Space Coordinating Committee, which brings together stakeholders from academia, government, and industry to identify shared priorities and strengthen connections between the two communities. The presentation will also discuss the Blue Horizons workshop series, which provides a forum for developing future space astronomy mission concepts and fostering collaboration between astronomers, engineers, industry, and government partners.

The talk will also highlight opportunities to utilise Australia’s astronomy infrastructure, technologies, and expertise to support emerging space-sector activities. Examples include the potential use of the Anglo-Australian Telescope for Space Domain Awareness (SDA) and Deep-Space Optical Communications (DSOC), illustrating how astronomy facilities can contribute to national space capability while creating new opportunities for scientific, commercial, and strategic partnerships.

This presentation aims to identify opportunities for future collaboration between astronomy and space and help build a more connected and coordinated national ecosystem.

ABSTRACT. Australian Science, Australia’s Future is a comprehensive review of Australia's science capability undertaken by the Australian Academy of Science in order to answer a fundamental question: does Australia have the science it needs to meet the challenges of 2035?

Drawing on data dashboards, expert workshops, and foresight techniques, the Academy mapped scientific capability and shortfalls across three major challenge areas based on the Intergenerational Report and underpinned by sovereign capability and science literacy.

The project has identified eight critical science capability areas where demand is set to surge over the coming decade, including geoscience, climate science, and materials science. Many of these areas underpin Australia's space ambitions and the development of our sovereign space capability.

The Academy’s analysis has shown, disciplined by data and informed by foresight, where Australia’s science capability is strong, where gaps are emerging and our capability is insufficient to meet our 2035 challenges.

ABSTRACT. Australia’s rapidly expanding space sector faces a critical workforce bottleneck, exacerbated by high attrition in Higher Degree Research (HDR) programs and growing cognitive dependency on modern AI tools among emerging scholars. Traditional educational interventions focus heavily on passive theory or hyper-specialized technical skills, often overlooking early-stage research aptitude, critical reasoning, and structural candidate support. This leaves a significant gap between institutional academic demands and practical, self-directed research capabilities required for a thriving space industry. To address this, the AIMERS Foundation introduces an integrated educational framework that pairs AI as a structured research assistant with hands-on, experiential learning to build foundational research rigor early in the pipeline. A key highlight is AIMERS’ rocket-based educational program, designed to bridge foundational STEM concepts with real-world aerospace applications. By cultivating active critical thinking and research literacy before candidates hit high-pressure academic or industry milestones, AIMERS provides a scalable model to bolster Australia's space workforce, retain domestic talent, and transform emerging technologies from cognitive crutches into powerful research catalysts.

ABSTRACT. The Monash High Altitude Balloon (MHAB) program is transforming undergraduate science and engineering education by creating a new model of authentic, student-led learning through real near-space missions. Rather than following predefined laboratory exercises, students take ownership of the complete scientific process—from developing research questions and designing experiments to building, testing, flying and analysing scientific payloads. The initiative empowers students to lead authentic scientific missions, with academic staff serving as mentors who support, challenge and guide learning throughout the process.

Since its establishment, MHAB has grown into a multidisciplinary community of more than 60 students from Science, Engineering, Information Technology, Business, Law and the Arts. Through collaborative design reviews, technical workshops and successive flight campaigns, students will progressively develop the skills and confidence to contribute to future near-space balloon missions. In doing so, they acquire scientific, technical and professional capabilities that are difficult to achieve in traditional teaching environments, including systems thinking, leadership, communication and interdisciplinary teamwork.

This presentation reflects on the first year of MHAB, highlighting the challenges of establishing a student-led space program, the educational opportunities it has created, and its vision for the future. It demonstrates how learning by doing can transform student engagement and provides a sustainable model for authentic undergraduate education that prepares students to lead future scientific and engineering missions.

ABSTRACT. There is growing interest in the preservation of dark skies. This stems not only on from concern about the effect of light pollution on optical astronomy, but also on human and wildlife health and well-being. Astrotourism is a growth market, with over 250 designated International Dark Sky Places (IDSPs) currently established across more than 22 countries on six continents. Accreditation requires measurement of the sky darkness on an annual basis to ensure that it maintains its darkness to a suitable level. However, the methodology behind this is only loosely defined, allowing for a wide interpretation of the readings.

We present on a long baseline measurement of the sky darkness at the River Murray International Dark Sky Reserve (RMIDSR), the first such Reserve to be accredited in Australia. Readings were taken every minute and filtered for environmental factors such as the presence of the Moon or clouds. Values in excess of 21.9 mag/square arc second were recorded, with 22.0 usually taken to be the value for a ‘perfectly’ dark sky. Rather than using a simplistic averaging of values, which is meaningless for logarithmic values such as these, we developed a statistical method to estimate sky darkness to a pre-defined percentile. We believe that this has the potential to be the basis for dark sky estimations internationally.

ABSTRACT. Just three decades ago, astronomers discovered the first planets orbiting stars like the Sun (exoplanets). In recent years, the rapid expansion of the exoplanet catalogue has shifted the field's focus from discovery toward the characterisation of planetary habitability. A central challenge remains: identifying which planetary architectures support long-term climate stability and potentially life. Our work uses the Solar System as a laboratory to test how varying orbital architectures influence the stability of the system and planets in the Habitable Zone (HZ). By simulating diverse system configurations, we analyse the interplay between gravitational dynamics and Milankovitch-scale climate oscillations. Our goal is to determine if specific "stable" architectures are prerequisites for maintaining consistent climatic conditions necessary for life, providing a selection metric for future missions such as the Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO).

ABSTRACT. Planetary rings remain one of the most intriguing, yet mysterious phenomena studied within the Solar system. The four distinct ring systems that surround each of the giant planets have their own unique composition, structure, and proposed formation mechanisms. They stand alongside newly discovered ring systems surrounding asteroids, Centaurs, and trans-Neptunian objects, challenging our understanding of these awe-inspiring structures.

Recent work has investigated the possibility of past ring structures existing around the smaller terrestrial planets, including Mars, and even Earth. This has exciting implications for the understanding of possible ring-planet interactions, and the consequences that rings might have for planetary habitability. Parallel to this research is the study of exoplanetary ring structures, which explores different ring materials and formation pathways not observed in the Solar system.

The coming decade will see the launch of several exoplanet missions, with the objective of detecting potential habitable worlds, exo-moons, and exo-rings. Herein lies an opportunity to bridge these objectives by understanding the potential influence of plausible ring systems on habitability. Our research aims to provide a novel contribution to the literature by investigating possible formation pathways of rings around candidate habitable exoplanets and determining the possible consequences (advantageous or disadvantageous) of ring material infall and other ring dynamics on habitability.

ABSTRACT. The Hildas are a population of asteroids trapped in 3:2 mean-motion resonance with Jupiter. They orbit with semi-major axes that place them between the outer edge of the asteroid belt and Jupiter's orbit, centred around the location of the 3:2 resonance at approximately 3.9 au from the Sun.

Whilst thousands of Hildas have been discovered in the past 150 years, the population has remained relatively unstudied, particularly in comparison to the main asteroid belt, and the Jovian Trojans (objects trapped in 1:1 resonance with Jupiter).

In this talk, we present the results of the most detailed suite of dynamical simulations that have ever been carried out of the Hilda population. Our simulations examine the orbital stability and dynamical evolution of 2699 of the known Hildas over a period of 1 Gyr, and reveal that the population of Hildas is far more diverse and interesting than previous studies have suggested.

ABSTRACT. Tektites are a form of natural glass that are created during high pressure and temperature meteorite impact events, where complete melting of ejecta material occurs, and high atmospheric or suborbital ejection results in the creation of aerodynamic shapes. The Australasian strewnfield is the largest known tektite field on Earth. Understanding how isotopes behave during tektite formation can help us understand isotope behaviour during complex condensation and evaporation processes. This work is the highest precision δ41K measurements of Australasian tektites, with the largest δ41KBSE (‰) variation in large-form Australasian tektites of 0.538 ± 0.013 with low K, our new data, supplemented from literature data suggests K fractionation factors (α) between 0.9998 and 0.9990 during the Australite and microtektite formation process. Our new data suggests the previously conclusions of no K fractionation in Australasian tektites in the literature is flawed by low precision data. Measured indochinite δ41KBSE value of -0.01 ± 0.015 is statistically no different from other literature values (grand average of high precision literature measurements: 0.034 ± 0.03).

ABSTRACT. High-resolution observations of asteroids by spacecraft missions, including Hayabusa2 and OSIRIS-REx, together with analyses of returned samples, have revealed substantial heterogeneity in surface composition, morphology, and regolith properties. Ground-based remote sensing is therefore essential for extending these constraints to the broader near-Earth asteroid population. Visible and near-infrared reflectance spectroscopy provides compositional information, whereas planetary radar is sensitive to surface and near-surface roughness and to dielectric properties related to composition, density, and porosity. Radar observations therefore provide complementary constraints on asteroid surface and near-surface properties. Goldstone and Arecibo radar observations have characterized numerous near-Earth asteroids, providing measurements of radar reflectivity, polarization, Doppler bandwidth, shape, and spin state. However, radar observables depend not only on target properties but also on observing wavelength, viewing geometry, and rotational phase, making comparisons between observations nontrivial. Australian radar facilities, including those used by the Southern Hemisphere Asteroid Radar Program (SHARP), provide additional observations from the Southern Hemisphere and can extend the range of viewing geometries and rotational phases sampled by planetary radar. This study evaluates publicly available Australian asteroid radar observations, including SHARP data, to assess the radar scattering information that can be reliably extracted from these datasets and its complementarity with published Goldstone and historical Arecibo measurements. The analysis focuses on Doppler-spectral and polarization properties and on their potential for characterizing the diversity of radar scattering behavior among near-Earth asteroids.

ABSTRACT. Three studies are presented in one narrative that spans tomato cultivation, phytonutrient extraction, and space meal design, all with view on the “Deep Space Food Challenge”. First, terrestrial pilot-scale evidence from controlled-environment indoor farming will be provided to guide resource-efficient food-production systems for future lunar and Martian habitats. Results of tomato growth in La Trobe’s high-technology research facility are extrapolated to a pilot scenario of 1,800 tomato plants in a 72 m² LED-illuminated growth area of 110 m2. Type of greenhouse, LED lighting, HVAC, irrigation, nutrition, and tomato cultivar choice were quantified as technological levers. A cradle-to-factory-gate life cycle assessment (LCA) determined the global-warming potential (GWP) and other LCA impact categories. From there, another large scale-up step is undergone towards 3,400 million tonnes of annual fruit/crop production, conceptually fuelled from the current largest global indoor farm, at the Melbourne Tullamarine Airport Precinct (10,000 m2 farm area in 150,000 m² land development). For space applications, these findings highlight the importance of minimising power demand, thermal-control requirements, water and nutrient inputs, and operational complexity in bioregenerative life-support systems. From the from above tomato manufacturing, the LCA study continues with pomace (5% biowaste left), which is directed to a two-step phytonutrient extraction cascade. Supercritical CO₂ first recovers the lipophilic carotenoids (lycopene and β-carotene) with tocopherol, a solvent-free route well suited to closed habitats; acid hydrolysis then recovers the flavonoids (quercetin, kaempferol, chalcone, and apigenin). On a per-gram basis, the carotenoid stage converges at about 47-48 MJ g⁻¹ of cumulative energy demand (CED), whereas the flavonoid stage clusters at 224-236 MJ g⁻¹. Using renewable electricity reduces GWP by about 15%, while a tenfold scale-up lowers extraction energy by 25-35%. While the entire pomace-extraction system is within its single steps in harmony for GWP and CED, biofortification, genetical enrichment in phytonutrients, need to be applied to reach terrestrial-commercial and space-capability level. As an alternative to extracting the phytonutrients, their supply as food dishes from grown plants is presented. As a ‘space dish, a snack bar has been designed based on Lemna duckweed, a candidate well suited to space farming. The ingredients are chosen for their phytonutrient content and potential to uplift it by biofortification. The heating of this snack under simulated space conditions is different than when being warmed up on Earth, giving a bespoke aroma profile.

ABSTRACT. CubeSat electrical power systems (EPS) are prone to early failure, yet their on-orbit datasets remain scarce, hindering the development of data-driven health-monitoring tools. Compounding this, telemetry is frequently recorded with relative timestamps rather than absolute Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), limiting the accuracy of telemetry-based EPS assessment. This paper presents a two-line element (TLE)-based methodology for reconstructing absolute UTC alignment and validating EPS telemetry against orbital mechanics using 40 ground station passes from the TSURU 1U CubeSat of the BIRDS-4 mission. A two-stage Simplified General Perturbations 4 (SGP4) grid-search algorithm reconstructs absolute UTC timestamps from relative telemetry without requiring ground station timing logs, achieving 96.9% mean eclipse-flag agreement. Validation confirms that panel temperatures track seasonal beta-angle evolution, battery voltage remains within the safe operating envelope, and the observed mean eclipse fraction of 32.2% ± 12.1% is consistent with the cylindrical shadow model across a beta-angle range of −74.8° to +69.4°. These results establish a validated, reusable methodology for telemetry timing reconstruction and EPS validation across CubeSat missions.

ABSTRACT. Future deep-space exploration will require substantial energy reserves to sustain crews during missions to the International Space Station (ISS), Moon and Mars. Optimising crew composition offers a critical pathway to reduce operational costs, lower system mass, and expand payload capacity, mission range, or transit speeds. However, crew selection involves navigating complex trade-offs across multiple mission objectives. This study evaluates how human body size (stature), together with body mass, team size, and team composition, all influence overall spacecraft mass and energy requirements. By applying anthropometric modelling, our analysis demonstrates that optimizing crew physical structure can significantly reduce baseline crew mass, directly translating into lower cost and enhanced payload capacity for scientific and operational equipment.

We conclude from our analysis of astronaut data that a crew of four small stature females could reduce mass by around 179 kg in comparison to four large stature males (a mass reduction of potentially 46% without changing crew size). For a given mass, females also have lower energy expenditure than males. Alternatively, a mixed crew of four astronauts travelling to the ISS, consisting of two males and two females, all of small stature could reduce crew mass by approximately 161 kg in comparison to a crew of four large stature males (a mass reduction of about 42%). Without changing crew size, this reduction could increase the payload capacity of contemporary spacecraft, such as the Orion and Starliner, from 100 kg to 261 kg. A mixed crew selection would have the characteristics of variability, balance and redundancy.

ABSTRACT. Space systems underpin critical services including communication, Earth observation, and positioning, navigation and timing (PNT) for civilian, industrial, and military use. Growing reliance on these systems by telecommunications companies, financial institutions, governments, and civilians has driven the launch of many satellites to meet demand. However, the integrity of space systems is increasingly threatened by cyberattacks such as satellite hijacking and jamming, which can disrupt or deny communications, posing significant risks to global critical infrastructure.

To defend against these threats and improve network management, this research investigates the use of software-defined networking (SDN) in space systems. SDN offers benefits proven in terrestrial networks, including centralised control, flexibility, scalability, and improved security, by separating the control plane from the data plane. However, SDN also introduces challenges, such as the controller placement problem and increased vulnerability to attacks like distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) and flow-rule poisoning, due to its centralised design. This research therefore also explores an intelligent security control—a machine learning (ML)-based intrusion detection system (IDS)—to address these risks.

The study followed three phases. First, a systematic literature review and threat mapping, using the SPARTA framework and the COSMOS2 ontology, identified DDoS as one of the most prevalent threats to SDN-based space systems. Second, a simulation framework (S3FS) was developed using MATLAB and Mininet to model a Walker-Delta Earth observation constellation, generating the SDN-based space system intrusion detection (S3ID) dataset of benign and malicious traffic. Third, an ML-based IDS was trained on the S3ID dataset and other datasets, and deployed within S3FS to test its effectiveness.

This research contributes to the emerging field of SDN in space systems, offering the S3FS framework, the S3ID dataset, and a validated ML-based IDS to support future work on more secure and efficient space network management.

ABSTRACT. Neptune Trojans are a group of asteroids that librate in clouds around the L4 and L5 Lagrange points, accompanying Neptune on its orbit in a 1:1 mean motion resonance. These asteroids reside in cloud like regions sixty degrees leading and trailing Neptune. An understanding of their dynamical stability offers a potentially valuable insight into the evolution of the early Solar System. These Trojans are anticipated to have originated from a variety of sources within the early Solar System, including the rocky regions of the inner solar system as well, insitu at their current distance from the Sun as well as the trans-Neptunian region. Having both stable and unstable Neptune Trojans raises questions about whether they include objects that have been companions of Neptune since early in the Solar System history as well as interlopers that are merely visiting this little-known region. Previous studies into three of the earliest known Neptune Trojans (2001 QR322, 2004 KV18 and 2008 LC18) have shown significant variations in the dynamical stability of these objects leaving unanswered the questions as to whether some are truly long-term companions of Neptune or merely temporary visitors to the regions. There is now the opportunity to revisit previous research with the advantage of improved observational arcs and orbital solutions than was previously allowing us to further constrain the dynamics of each of these asteroids. With very few Neptune Trojans currently observed the timing is right to dynamically analyse the complete set of known Neptune Trojans. A complete dynamical catalogue will lay the foundation for further research into these mysterious objects on the border between our known planetary system and the vast trans-Neptunian region.

ABSTRACT. Almost all major over-the-horizon (OTH) radars, including the Australian JORN systems, the US Navy ROTHRs, the Russian 29Б6 Konteyner (Контейнер), and the Chinese tiānbō léidá (天波雷达) radars employ linear phased arrays for both transmit and receive functions. This design simplifies signal processing, provides predictable beam steering, stable sidelobe behavior and tractable calibration over very long apertures, though, in its standard configuration, it scans a limited surveillance arc and lacks any vertical beam steering capability. To remedy the former deficiency, multiple arrays may be collocated, as with the JORN facility at Laverton and the Konteyner radars. The latter deficiency can be addressed by two-dimensional arrays, either stacked vertically as with some early Soviet systems and, in a limited way, Konteyner, or horizontally disposed, like some recent experimental facilities in the US and Canada with uniform rectangular arrays. Despite its ubiquity, this architecture is not the only way to design a capable OTHR. The stand-out example of an alternative approach is the NOSTRADAMUS radar near Senonches in France, and this radar is largely the product of a single mind – that of Professor Claude Goutelard, formerly of the Laboratoire d'étude des transmissions ionosphérique at Université Paris-Sud. NOSTRADAMUS achieves 360° azimuthal coverage and vertical directivity via its unique Y-shaped array, but that is not the end of its novelties. Goutelard evolved his design for NOSTRADAMUS from an earlier ionospheric sounder, STUDIO, that he and his team built at a site near Brétigny-sur-Orge on a flight test center known as the Centre d'Essais en Vol (CEV). This sounder incorporated a number of highly original concepts. First, it employed two classes of novel waveforms with the property of double orthogonality, in both delay and Doppler; the waveforms used by the modern OTH radars listed earlier are singly orthogonal. These Wolfmann-Goutelard binary sequences and the subsequent Goutelard q-ary sequences were used to code distinct long pulses that could be radiated simultaneously from different transmitting elements and processed separately on the receiving array. This was a form of MIMO, many decades ahead of its better-known modern implementations. Another unique feature of STUDIO was the use of an array with fractal geometry, not as an arbitrary mathematical nicety but as a means for capturing the fractal characteristics of the ionospheric propagation channel which derives from the plasma turbulence spectrum. The combination of these features, along with various nonlinear signal processing tools, enabled STUDIO to measure skywave channel characteristics while radiating a mean power of a few milliwatts. When asked to propose a design for a full-fledged OTHR, Goutelard presented the solution that is now NOSTRADAMUS. In the course of its implementation by ONERA, the array geometry was preserved but a more conventional waveform suite was adopted, facilitating initial testing and avoiding both the complexities and the limitations of the Goutelard waveforms when the mission is focused on target detection, not channel characterization. Yet the ideas underlying STUDIO remain highly relevant to the needs of modern OTHR systems for regional ionospheric models and channel characterization, so deployment of a network of these low power, low cost auxiliary sounders is worthy of consideration.

ABSTRACT. Planetary defence relies on the timely and accurate detection, tracking and characterisation of potentially hazardous asteroids (PHAs) to assess the possible risk of impact with Earth. While major international organisations, including NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA), operate with significant capabilities in the Northern Hemisphere, observational coverage in the Southern Hemisphere remains an important consideration for planetary defence. This study evaluates the potential contributions of the Zadko Observatory, as part of the University of Western Australia’s (UWA) Space Surveillance Hub, to planetary defence efforts by assessing its geographic location, sky suitability, and optical instrumentation. Located 80 kilometres north of Perth within the Yeal Nature Reserve, in the Shire of Gingin, Western Australia, the observatory’s longitudinal position provides access to a largely unobserved region of the sky, spanning from the eastern coast of Australia to South Africa. Using specialised equipment and long-term observational data we assess key parameters of the site’s sky suitability, including sky brightness, meteorological patterns, atmospheric seeing and light pollution. The Zadko Observatory hosts multiple optical instruments including the Zadko telescope, a 1.0 metre f/4 fast-slew Richey-Chrétien robotic telescope, with remote tracking capabilities. The telescope’s rapid slewing and remote operation enable it to respond efficiently to time-sensitive and variable targets.

ABSTRACT. Asteroid impacts represent both a fundamental planetary process and an important consideration for planetary-defence hazard assessment. The consequences of an encounter depend not only on the initial size and velocity of an object, but also on its interaction with the target planetary environment. The 2013 Chelyabinsk event demonstrated that relatively small near-Earth objects can undergo substantial atmospheric fragmentation and energy deposition before reaching the surface, producing significant effects without forming a large impact crater. However, the same incoming object may experience substantially different outcomes at Mars or the Moon because of differences in atmospheric density, gravitational acceleration, and surface conditions. The resulting framework provides a controlled method for examining how an asteroid with identical initial properties can produce fundamentally different hazard outcomes across planetary bodies. Rather than considering atmospheric entry, fragmentation, and cratering independently, this study connects these processes within a single comparative framework and quantifies outcomes using common metrics including energy deposition, surviving mass, fragmentation, impact velocity, and crater dimensions. This approach provides insight into the physical parameters controlling asteroid impact outcomes and supports the development of more transferable methods for planetary-impact and planetary-defence assessment.

ABSTRACT. The 20-200 metre size class of asteroid remains largely unsurveyed yet account for the majority of Earth close approaches. They are often discovered only weeks or days before their closest approach, leaving little time for mitigation strategies in the case of imminent impact. Impactors of this size have potential for considerable regional destruction, famously in the case of the 2013 Chelyabinsk meteor, which injured thousands of people and caused significant financial damage. This project aims to optimise methods for characterising these NEAs during close approaches, aiming to reduce latency between initial detection and classification. It uses the Zadko Telescope, a metre class optical telescope in Western Australia. As part of the International Asteroid Warning Network (IAWN) and Southern Hemisphere Asteroid Research Consortium (SHARC), it plays an important role in providing complete sky coverage and optical tracking of NEAs during Earth close approaches. Asteroid 2026 JH2 was of particular interest to this project due to its close proximity to Earth during its flyby. In collaboration with ESA, a series of “drift trailed” photometric observations were taken, from which the rotational period was determined. Light curve analysis revealed strong variation in magnitude, indicating a possible elongated structure and/or asymmetry. Its rotational period is well below the spin barrier, indicating high tensile strength as opposed to a "rubble-pile" asteroid model. These results demonstrate the potential of this project to contribute to global planetary defence efforts.

ABSTRACT. Zadko Observatory, as part of the UWA Space Surveillance Hub, plays a crucial role in Australia in providing optical follow-up observations of Near-Earth Asteroids. We report observations of three selected asteroids during close approaches over the past three years: 2023 DZ2, 2018 UY, and 2024 ON. For 2023 DZ2, we demonstrate that, despite highly variable photometric conditions, rotational signatures can be extracted from the observations. The close approach of 2018 UY provided high-quality photometric data for an object with a previously unknown rotation period. Our analysis reveals a significant periodic magnitude variation of Δm ≈ 1 mag, indicating a highly elongated shape. Assuming a triaxial ellipsoid model, we estimate an upper limit on the asteroid’s elongation. The third object, 2024 ON, was discovered by the ATLAS survey in Hawaii in July 2024 and subsequently confirmed as a binary system through Goldstone radar observations. We successfully imaged 2024 ON and photometrically confirmed its binary nature using UWA facilities.

ABSTRACT. The Zadko Telescope has established itself as an integral piece in Australia's Space Situational Awareness and Earth Defence network, with membership in the International Asteroid Warning Network (IAWN) and Southern Hemisphere Asteroid Research Consortium (SHARC) and ongoing collaboration with several internationally regarded space agencies such as POLSA, ESA and JAXA. The Zadko Telescope is a 1.0 m f/4.0 DFM fast-slew RC with a designed slew rate of 5 degrees per second with a limiting magnitude of 22.1 at 180 seconds. Its Western Australian coastal longitude grants it a wide baseline to similar facilities on the East coast and in South Africa.

In 2025 the telescope underwent a limited but significant upgrade to the control electronics, encoders, imaging train and telescope control software to modernise the instrument. The suite of upgrades included installation of 26-bit absolute optical on-axis encoders on both the RA and Dec axes, providing 1.417 arcsecond RMS pointing error and reducing the de-trended RMS tracking error to 1.73 arcseconds. The imaging train now incorporates an FLI Kepler KL6060 sCMOS camera, supplied in collaboration with ESA, giving a 51′ × 51′ field of view at 0.51″ per pixel. This greatly increases the system's usability for tracking NEAs with poorly constrained orbits and reduces the number of slews and images involved in conducting asteroid search missions.

With these upgrades in place the telescope has taken part in several observing campaigns since the end of 2025, including the IAWN 3I/ATLAS (C/2025 N1) campaign, 2026 JH2 in collaboration with ESA, 2025 AL2, and the 1997 NC1 SHARC imaging campaign. Work remains before full operational capability is restored. The five-axis secondary focus assembly has limited functionality and requires overhaul, and the observatory is migrating to the open-source, Linux-based Las Cumbres Observatory Control System. Both efforts are underway, with completion expected in Q4 2026. This poster presents the upgrades delivered to date and their measured impact on pointing, tracking and survey performance.

ABSTRACT. Lunar dust, or lunar regolith, is widely regarded as one of the most significant environmental challenges facing sustained lunar missions. Due to interactions with solar wind and photoemission, fine lunar dust particles become electrostatically charged and adhere to surrounding surfaces. Once adhered, lunar dust abrades vacuum seals and spacesuit fabrics, poses respiratory risks to human health, and reduces the mechanical, thermal and optical performance of scientific instruments.

Electron-beam based lunar dust mitigation utilises an electron beam to loft dust particles off surfaces through electrostatic charging and repulsion. To characterise and optimise this process, previous studies have investigated how the beam incidence angle, number of electron beams, and inclusion of simulated Solar vacuum-ultraviolet radiation source affects the efficacy of lunar dust removal. This work examines how moving the electron beam back-and-forth at varying speeds affects the efficacy of removing lunar regolith simulant from spacesuit material under vacuum.

Beta-cloth spacesuit fabric samples, contaminated with OPRL-JSCN Lunar Mare simulant, were placed in a vacuum chamber at an ambient pressure of 50 mPa. A 30mA, 90eV electron beam was produced by a thermionically emitting tungsten filament and translated back-and-forth above the sample at linear speeds ranging from 5-13 mm/s. The effectiveness of dust removal was quantified using video analysis and image processing techniques.

Translating the electron beam achieved higher dust removal efficiency than stationary beam tests, which left residual dust on the sample due to shadowing effects. In addition, faster translations tended toward higher dust removal efficiency.

ABSTRACT. The Southern Hemisphere Asteroid Radar Program (SHARP) has observed dozens of near-Earth asteroids (NEAs) since 2015, leveraging our geographic advantages and extensive radio facilities to provide greater coverage. These have contributed to the refinement of asteroid ephemerides and determination of physical and rotational properties of the bodies, particularly for favourable close approaches from southern latitudes. In this poster, we discuss results from recent observations from our research consortium over the past year, including the September 2025 observations of 2025 FA22 and the June 2026 observations of 1997 NC1 during their close approaches to the Earth. Results presented include confining the asteroids’ rotation period and diameter, as well as refining their orbital parameters. The asteroids’ spectral classification and surface composition were also bounded by polarimetry studies.

ABSTRACT. Thermosphere mass density remains a key source of uncertainty for predicting the trajectories of objects in low Earth orbit. Estimates from commonly used empirical and physics-based models often have large errors, though uncertainty is rarely quantified. Moreover, these models can be computationally expensive to evaluate in the orbit estimation context. Here we describe an alternative approach to estimating thermosphere mass density and its uncertainty along specific satellite orbits based on historical data. Using the Space Environment Technologies (SET) High Accuracy Satellite Drag Model (HASDM) database, we identify cases where solar activity, geomagnetic activity, and season are close to a case where we wish to estimate density. We then obtain synthetic density data for those times along appropriately time-shifted trajectories for the satellite in question. These data are used to obtain estimates of density and its uncertainty via ridge regression, Gaussian process regression, and neural network models. The performance of each of these approaches is quantified through comparison with satellite accelerometer derived density data.

ABSTRACT. Fungi have been used as staple foods and medicine for thousands of years, with the antibiotic penicillin being produced from mould to be purified for use. Fungi are highly adaptable organisms with potential for applications in long-duration space exploration, including food production, sustainable materials, and medicinal applications. However, microgravity can influence fungal growth, morphology and structural properties, making it important to understand how microgravity in space affects mycelial and fruiting body development. Characterising these structural responses will help evaluate both the opportunities and potential risks associated with cultivating fungi beyond Earth. This project will compare two fungal samples: fungi grown on the International Space Station (ISS) and fungi grown on Earth. The fungi were inoculated onto hardwood and soy pellets and then grown in space on the ISS for 3.5 weeks. Hypothesis: To determine if there are any changes to the pattern of mycelium on the surface and inside the inoculated hardwood and soy pellets, comparing the space conditions to the fungi grown in Earth conditions. Three mushrooms will be examined: Lion’s mane (Hericium erinaceus), Turkey’s tail (Trametes versicolor), and Caterpillar Fungus (Cordyceps militaris). All three types of fungi will have Space and Ground Control variants, for a total of 6 samples. Aim: To use Micro Computed Tomography (MCT) and Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) imaging techniques to determine mycelial structure, including depth and quantity of the mycelium for the Earth control and Space samples. The hardwood and soy pellets that the fungi were grown on will be imaged using the MCT Beamline at the Australian Synchrotron and SEM at Swinburne University to determine whether there are any differences in the pattern of mycelial hyphae across the surface and inside the hardwood and soy pellets. The MCT beamline will provide high-resolution, 3-dimensional X-ray images of the inoculated pellets, and the SEM will provide high-resolution, topographical images of the mycelium on the surface of the inoculated pellets.

ABSTRACT. Despite the increasing use of satellite-based internet constellations, the vast majority of global internet traffic still travels through undersea fibre-optic cables. Even at scale, satellite links are unlikely to displace fibre as the backbone of global connectivity, due to fundamental limits on bandwidth and weather-dependency. However, signal loss in current fibre-optic cables based on silica is a significant bottleneck, which can only be compensated by a chain of complex and expensive optical amplifiers built into each cable. ZBLAN, a heavy-metal fluoride glass, offers a potential alternative to silica: its theoretical intrinsic optical loss is ~20 times lower than that of silica [1], which offers a substantial reduction in the cost and complexity of long-haul links. However, realising this potential has been limited by crystallisation (a defect formation process) during fibre fabrication. Parabolic-flight experiments ~30 years ago have shown that microgravity suppresses the detrimental ZBLAN crystallisation.

To test the favourable effect of microgravity directly at meaningful scale, a compact, fully automated ZBLAN fibre-drawing tower designed for operation on the International Space Station (ISS) with minimal astronaut interaction was developed. The system was first validated on the ground by successfully demonstrating that a fibre drawn on the miniaturised tower matched the optical and geometric properties of a fibre drawn on a conventional tower from preforms fabricated under identical conditions [2]. This step established that any performance differences observed in orbit could be attributed to the microgravity environment rather than to the drawing apparatus itself.

Following a 2024 ISS mission, the system produced ~12 km of ZBLAN fibre across multiple compositions and draw parameters, including a continuous length of 1,141 m. This is the first time a sample volume of this scale has been produced from space-based drawing. Results from the characterisation of these fibres show that microgravity manufacturing produced a clear benefit for step-index fibres, with space-drawn samples showing markedly lower attenuation than their ground-drawn counterparts [3]. Full realisation of the potential of micro-gravity fabrication currently depends on improving the purity of raw materials and non-crystalline defects, which is actively being pursued.

These results represent the first demonstration of microgravity-enabled fibre production at an industrially-relevant scale and confirm the technical viability of space-based processing for fluoride glasses. The miniaturisation and automation demonstrated in this work opens a practical pathway toward increasingly autonomous, market-scale manufacturing of fibres in space.

[1] G.P. Agrawal, Fiber-Optic Communication Systems, Wiley, 2013. [2] A. Djordjevic et al., Automated compact fiber drawing tower: on the path to ultra-low-loss ZBLAN glass fibers, J. Phys. Photonics 8 (2026) 035016. [3] M.A. Arat et al., Space-based fabrication of ZBLAN optical fibers: a breakthrough in microgravity manufacturing, Space Sci. Technol. 6 (2026) Article 0572.

ABSTRACT. Space-to-ground and inter-satellite links are the principal capacity challenge for low Earth orbit networks. Cloud blocks an optical downlink outright, and on crosslinks the narrow optical beam is slow to acquire, so radio frequency links remain essential; their capacity is won with bandwidth, and the gigahertz-wide allocations make this a real-time processing problem. This paper reports a real-time field programmable gate array baseband modem carrying 50 gigabits per second over two 4.8 GHz channels sampled at 4.8 giga-samples per second. It was verified at intermediate frequency, at an error vector magnitude of -28.8 dB, and over a 252 GHz link at -22.0 dB, with an end-to-end latency below 400 ns of which 100 ns is signal processing. The architecture is carrier independent and parameterised by sample rate; dual polarisation with two-by-two spatial multiplexing would take the same channels, at the same modulation, to 20 bits per second per hertz.

ABSTRACT. Australia's access to spaceborne Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) data is critical for all weather Earth observation across emergency management, agriculture, infrastructure and national security. Sovereign capability is extremely limited, relying almost entirely on foreign government and commercial providers. Previous studies have examined the potential for a sovereign SAR mission to mitigate Australia's Earth observation data risks across the L, S, C, X and Ka radio frequency (RF) bands; however, these concepts have not been assessed against the contemporary SAR landscape, and high costs, funding changes and limited support have prevented any from progressing to implementation.

This paper presents an updated, systematic landscape and requirements assessment integrating strategic and engineering analysis. The engineering and operational capabilities of over 50 government and commercial SAR missions across the L, S, C, X, Ku and P bands are assessed within the Australian context, identifying how existing and planned international missions address national needs, and where gaps and risks to sovereign access exist. RF band availability, polarisation, imaging capabilities, coverage of Australia and its exclusive economic zone, cost, risk and national priority are considered. Existing and new sovereign mission concepts are evaluated against these criteria to define candidate concepts, and a framework is presented for assessing them in a subsequent trade space study, informing Australian investment, capability development and policy decisions on sovereign SAR access beyond 2030. In parallel, an assessment of Australia's domestic space industry identifies which mission elements could feasibly be developed nationally, and where partnerships would be advantageous.

ABSTRACT. As Australia accelerates its sovereign launch and satellite capabilities, building a specialized workforce capable of bridging local raw mineral extraction with space-grade additive manufacturing is essential. This paper presents a student-led exploratory study on the pathways, technical hurdles, and emerging opportunities within Australia’s space-metals sector. We investigate how domestic resources—such as titanium, aluminum, and nickel—are processed locally via advanced manufacturing methods like selective laser melting (SLM) to produce flight-ready components.

By mapping current research initiatives, university-industry partnerships (such as the iLAuNCH Trailblazer), and testing standards required for aerospace qualification, this work highlights key skill areas needed for the next generation of space engineers. Additionally, we identify critical operational gaps where student research and academic-industry collaborations can directly contribute to sovereign hardware development. This perspective aims to demonstrate how emerging engineering talent can actively integrate into Australia's expanding space manufacturing ecosystem while driving local supply chain resilience.

ABSTRACT. Australia has been a rehearsal stage for Mars exploration for decades.

The Pilbara region preserves the oldest convincing evidence of life on Earth. Australia’s arid interior evokes the terrain and geology of Mars, while its remoteness demands the kind of self-reliance that will be essential for the first crews on another world. Outback Australia is one of the best places on Earth to learn the art of living on another planet.

Since 2001, Mars Society Australia (MSA) has conducted an ongoing series of projects and expeditions exploring Australia’s unique Mars analogue environments. These have ranged from the Jarntimarra-1 site-selection expedition and the MARS-Oz habitat concept to four generations of MarsSkin mechanical counter-pressure suits and the Arkaroola rover challenges. MSA has also participated in NASA’s Spaceward Bound expeditions in Australia and overseas, along with international crewed simulations such as Mars 160.

In recent years, MSA has continued its analogue field research, including the successful Rock Wallaby 1 expedition in August 2026. This brought together students, experienced researchers, academics and keen amateurs to explore the rugged and scientifically intriguing country north of Arkaroola in South Australia. MSA also played an important role in the Himalayan Outpost for Planetary Exploration (HOPE), India’s first full-scale crewed Mars analogue station.

Marking the 25th anniversary of both Mars Society Australia and the Australian Space Research Conference, the 2026 David Cooper Memorial Lecture will be presented by MSA president and director Earl White. It will explore why Australia is such an important destination for Mars analogue research, look back over MSA’s active history in Australia and and beyond, as well as touching on what the MSA's next chapter might reveal.