CSIRO chooses startup Inovor Technologies in Adelaide in 2018 to design and build land- monitor nanosatellite
A concept for the CSIROSat-1 nanosatellite designed, assembled and built by Inovor Technologies in Adelaide for the commonwealth scientific industrial research organisation to monitor land changes.
Image courtesy CSIRO
Inovor Technologies, at that stage a South Australia-based start-up company, was chosen in 2018 to design, assemble and build CSIROSat-1 satellite will allow commonwealth scientific industrial research organisation (CSIRO) researchers to collect data on land cover changes.
CSIRO's Centre for Earth Observation indictor Dr Alex Held said "CSIRO is committed to collaborating and fostering relationships across the space sector and we're excited to be working together with our build partner, Inovor Technologies. It's critical to engage on these types of technology projects to support local capability and nurture the development of the Australian space industry."
Inovor Technologies provide space technologies and satellite mission solutions and are ideally placed to build the satellite.As the only Australian company making satellites using a fully integrated Australian supply, Inovor provided the added benefit of upskilling the local advanced manufacturing sector.
Inovor Technologies chief executive Dr Matt Tetlow was previously a leader in developing a miniaturised satellite named SUSat, built by about 50 Adelaide University staff and students, launched in a cargo space craft from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in 2017. The size of a loaf of bread, it was one of three “nanosatellites” developed in Australia under the European-funded project, QB50. They investigated the thermosphere to increase understanding of climate and weather modelling.
Tetlow said CSIROSat-1 would be a nanosatellite made up of three cubes, stacked one on top of the other, also about the same size as a loaf of bread: "CSIROSat-1 will carry a sensor with infrared imaging capability, the first time an Australian satellite has operated in this spectrum."
CSIROSat-1 would monitor land cover changes from effects such as flooding or deforestation, detecting bushfires through smoke, and studying cloud formation and the development of tropical cyclones/ "In addition to collecting information about Earth, it will be a platform for developing advanced on-board data processing capabilities."
Other collaborators and research partners in the project included the University of New South Wales in Canberra, the Australian National University, and Defence Science and Technology Group.
