IBA provided the funding to construct two state-of-the-art commercial satellite ground stations in Alice Springs. The facility is the first development of its kind on Aboriginal owned land and transforms Australia’s capability in earth observation.
Built, project-managed and owned by Indigenous companies – the Centre for Appropriate Technology (CfAT) and its subsidiaries Ekistica Ltd and CfAT Satellite Enterprises, as well as Ingerreke Commercial who laid the concrete foundations in December. The facility forms part of a global network of ground stations operated by Viasat Inc called Real Time Earth.
This new infrastructure has the potential to reduce the latency for high resolution earth observation imagery down from hours or days, to just minutes. The result will be to enhance Australia’s capability in disaster management (such as cyclones and bushfires), environmental monitoring, border protection and search and rescue, as well as strategic uses such as monitoring the economic impacts of pandemics like COVID-19 from space.
