This report has been prepared for the Department of Industry, Innovation and Science (DIIS). The terms of reference for this work are set out in Appendix A. It was prepared before the announcement that the Commonwealth Government will establish an Australian Space Agency.
For the purposes of this report the OECD definition of the ‘space economy’ defines the broad scope of the ‘space industry’. The UK Space Agency’s interpretation of ‘space-related activity’ has been adopted as the definition of the activity carried out within a ‘space industry1 (See Appendix B for further details).
Under this approach the space industry is deemed to comprise of the following sectors:
An illustrative diagram of the space supply chain is shown in Figure 1 .1. The supply chain is depicted in the top row, traversing space systems, ground systems, applications and ancillary services to end users. Communications, Earth Observations from Space and position, navigation and timing (PNT) are dominant areas of activity for Australia [APA15].