ANU Institute for Space | InSpace

This news made our day. Well done to all - exciting times ahead for the HIAF-ZES partnership.

We're over the moon to be part of the ELO2 consortium that has been selected by the Australian Space Agency to build Australia's first lunar rover, "Roo-ver"! This landmark program will make history for the Australian space sector, driving innovation and growing the industry. Associate Director, Strategic Projects Kate Ferguson said "We're delighted to be part of this once-in-a-lifetime mission and proud to collaborate with the whole @ELO2 consortium as we work towards this historic mission."

Congratulations to our Mission Specialist Professor Tracy Smart AO and Prof. Gordon Cable AM and Kate Manderson and their team for successfully running the first co-badged and designed course, "Principles of Aeromedical Certification for Medical Specialists" at The Australian National University's School of Medicine and Psychology along with the Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA). Here's to many more courses next year.

ANU Institute for Space | InSpace was presented with the Clare Burton Award for Excellence in Diversity, Equity & Inclusion last week and our Director Anna Moore FTSE collected the Chancellor's Award for Distinguished Contribution to the The Australian National University.   The Clare Burton Award represents so much to us as an institution because when InSpace started in 2018, a founding principle was based around gender and cultural diversity, bringing indigenous and first nations voices to the table and leading multidisciplinary research initiatives.    We feel we practise what we preach and since the start we have had over 50% of female representation in our institute and on our board, which is especially poignant given that the STEM and especially the space sector is predominantly male dominated. Additionally, our InSpace team is multicultural with 11 nationalities represented. We feel that these diverse backgrounds also bring something special to our team and our work and this has driven our success.    InSpace works with 18 multidisciplinary ANU academic researchers with specialties in space research, all of whom come from diverse backgrounds that bring their various experiences and perspectives to the InSpace portfolio. Internally, our team are collaborative, supportive and we foster an environment based around mutual trust for each other’s work and life and we have found this makes for a positive and innovative team that can work at a high-level.   We would like to thank the Pro-Vice Chancellor, Research Initiatives and Infrastructure Professor Ute Roessner AM FAA and her team for their eternal support and the Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research and Innovation) Lachlan Blackhall and his team along with the InSpace board for their time and encouragement.    Here’s to many more wonderful projects and collaborations in 2025. InSpace Kate Ferguson / Benjamin Bek / Krysia Derecki / Dr. Cassandra Steer Christopher Kourloufas / Anupam Kumar Pilli / Natasha Disha Emily Schuster / Paris Chen InSpace Mission Specialists Dr Zena Assaad / Associate Professor Francis Bennet Dr Ben Bramble / Caitlin Byrt / John Close / Doris Grosse Junichiro Kawaguchi / Dr. David W. Kim / Penny King Hanna Kurniawati / Robert Mahony / Kirk McKenzie Maria Racionero / Professor Tracy Smart AO / Professor Paul Tregoning Eduardo Trifoni / Dr Emma Tucker / Marta Yebra InSpace Board Sue Barrell AO FTSE / Kate Lundy / Helen Sullivan / Kiaran Kirk AM FAHMS ANU Research and Innovation

Thanks to Simon Clews and his team running the The Australian National University RessearchFest, part conference, part development opportunity, showing ANU HDR candidates how diverse our cohort are and getting them to think about the world in different ways. The three day event showed active examples of cross disciplinary work and methods. This morning, InSpace presented an expert panel on space research offering rare insight into the ANU Quantum Ground Station and looking at such questions as “Why does space matter? and “Should we go to Mars?” Featuring Dr. Cassandra Steer, Dr Michael Copeland and Dr Ben Bramble about Space and what it means and hopefully we inspired prospective researchers to look beyond and see where their study at ANU can take them!

A great way to end #AuSDASTM2024 debating whether 'Australia should rely on international partnerships to secure its space interests, even at the expense of independent capabilities.' While the crowd cheered for two rounds with team Australia to not rely entirely on partnerships, the popular vote got swayed during the last round. Unfortunately, the sentiment of despair and missing support from the Australian government seemed to have outweighed all very well and positively presented arguments why sovereign Aussi capabilities should be invested in to secure Australian space interests. Look at the last picture though, when the individual debaters were asked which side they would choose and all reunited for team Australia supporting and believing in Australian independent capabilities. Thanks to UNSW Canberra Space and participating debaters Phil Gordon AM GAICD, Philip Citowicki, Tyson Lange, Anntonette Dailey, Duncan Blake, and Anna Moore FTSE for bringing this entertaining and thoughtful debate to the Australian #SDA and #STM community.

IAC 2025 Sydney call for papers is now open! As an International Astronautical Federation (IAF) member organisation and member of the IAC 2025 Sydney Local Organizing Committee (LOC), ANU Institute for Space | InSpace would like to personally invite you to submit your abstract. The Australian National University was the largest contributor of abstracts from Australia for IAC2024 in Milan, with seven ANU contributors having a total of nine abstracts accepted, two of which were from our own Business Development Managers. We’re very proud of this success in 2024, and with IAC2025 being right here in Australia, we know we can extend this success next year with even more ANU and Australian representation. Call for papers is open until the end of February. Please consider submitting your abstracts in any of the following categories: 🧪 Category A: Science and Exploration 📄 Category B: Applications and Operations 📡 Category C: Technology 🏗️ Category D: Infrastructure 🚀 Category E: Space and Society See full details and the submission link below.

Congratulations to Prof Anna Moore FTSE, Director The Australian National University Institute for Space and VC Entrepreneurial Professor on winning the AmCham Australia Alliance Award for Space. It was a Gala evening worthy of her achievements in this important domain. Anna featured at the AmCham Alliance Showcase yesterday as well as in the official video. #space #industry #research https://lnkd.in/gPjE6MEH

Plants in space experiment targets moon landing next year! 🌱 🌔   An ambitious Australian plan to study whether plants can survive on the moon has secured a spot on a lunar landing mission scheduled to launch next year.     Lunaria One’s payload will contain seeds and plants, and their progress will be compared against controlled experiments undertaken here on Earth. Experts from the ANU Australian Plant Phenomics Network team and ANU Institute for Space | InSpace’s own Mission Specialist Caitlin Byrt are contributing to this project exploring how we can phenotype plants on the moon.     Read all the details in Space Connect’s article here: https://lnkd.in/gd8R7_Db 

🚀 New Frontier Technologies boost local launch capability with novel additively manufactured composite rocket body 🚀 We are thrilled to share the announcement of the successful testing of a composite rocket body by our partners at New Frontier Technologies! See the attached press release for full details. NFT will be at the i-SAIRAS 2024 Space symposium in Brisbane tomorrow to present their digital twinning technology, which was integral to the development of the rocket body. If you are at i-SAIRAS, be sure to find our NFT colleagues and go say hi!