Partners HENSOLDT and the University of Tasmania through their Southern Guardian Partnership participated in April’s SpaceFest activity where participants demonstrated their ability to detect, track, and catalogue objects orbiting Earth.

The international activity was part of a joint civil-military, international space traffic management exercise consisting of real and simulated events in which companies collaborate and compete to solve problems, and to understand, predict, and prevent adverse events.

HENSOLDT and UTas participants ‘chased’ satellites identified by a central management cell, mapped and predicted their orbits, and shared information back into the central team. Information was visible on large screens in the university’s interim operations room after being processed through HENSOLDT’s Space Battle Management System.

“SpaceFest is a fantastic opportunity for HENSOLDT and the University to showcase our unique nationwide sovereign SDA capabilities,” HENSOLDT Australia Deputy CEO, Scott Reeman said in a release. “The Southern Guardian Team is expertly playing a leading role in the development of this Australian national capability.”

Dean of School of Natural Sciences at the University of Tasmania, Prof Simon Ellingsen added, “This exercise is all about building our collective capacity in space domain awareness. We will be demonstrating the capabilities of the five radio telescopes we manage across Australia, which operate at a higher frequency than most and are able to retrieve very accurate information.”

This activity was designed to assist the ADF’s new Space Command to understand the Southern Guardian Partnership’s ability to support the collection of data, search for objects, and identify threats to Australia’s space-based capability.