Commonwealth Scientific and
  Industrial Research Organisation
Australia
 
Contacts:
 
Mr Greg Hardiman
Marketing Manager
CSIRO Textile and Fibre Technology
PO Box 21
Belmont VIC 3216
Phone: +61 3 5246 4000
Fax: +61 3 5246 4057
Email: Greg.Hardiman@tft.csiro.au
 
Mr Julian Cribb
Director
CSIRO National Awareness
PO Box 225
Dickson ACT 2602
Australia
Phone:  +61 2 6276 6244
Fax:  +61 2 6276 6821
Mobile: +61 0418 639 245
Email:  julian.cribb@nap.csiro.au
 
Media Release: Monday, 17 July 2000
 
Ref 2000/185
 
NASA supports Australian space program
 
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and CSIRO, on behalf of the Cooperative Research Centre for Satellite Systems, have formally agreed to cooperate on the Australian FedSat space mission.
 
FedSat, an experimental microsatellite, is the first major project of the Centre, a joint venture with five companies, six universities and two government research agencies.
 
The FedSat mission objective is to obtain scientific research data from the satellite to be launched during 2001. FedSat will carry communication, space science, engineering test and navigation payloads.
 
As part of this mission, NASA has agreed to provide a Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver and a high performance computing experiment, that features the Centre’s design for adaptive, reconfigurable computing technology.
 
The GPS instrument will be used to determine the accurate position of the satellite and to provide timing control and data in support of the Centre’s scientific research program.
 
Dr Miriam Baltuck, NASA Senior Representative in Australia says NASA’s support for the Centre’s research program extends a long and successful history of cooperation with Australia.
 
"The results of the experiments will benefit both country’s plans for future microsatellite missions," she says.
 
Increasing the adaptability and performance of low cost space missions, through the use of equipment with the ability to be reconfigured remotely from Earth, will lead to significant savings on spacecraft development and operational costs. Reconfigurable microsatellites will have a greater capacity to support a variety of customer requirements.
 
Dr Brian Embleton, the Centre’s Executive Director says NASA’s contribution will significantly enhance the performance of Australia’s microsatellite.
 
"It will help us to test the Centre’s new design concepts for reconfigurable space systems," Dr Embleton says.
 
The Centre has undertaken to fly the NASA supplied equipment and to provide US research groups with data from both experiments.
 
More information:
 
Professor Mike Miller
Deputy Executive Director
Cooperative Research Centre for Satellite Systems
08 8302 3310
 
Dr Miriam Baltuck
NASA Senior Representative in Australia and Southeast Asia
02 6281 8500 and 8501
 
Mr Jeff Kingwell
Centre Manager
Cooperative Research Centre for Satellite Systems
02 6216 7278
 
More information about FedSat is available at http://www.crcss.csiro.au