School (Acting) Director Update
Published in the RSAA Lunations
Vol1 Issue71 1–30 April 2026
No doubt many of you shared my disappointment in learning that the Minister advised the ESO director general that Australia would not convert Australia’s ten‑year Strategic Partnership with ESO to full membership. In February I informally met with both the incumbent and incoming director generals Xavier Barcons and Andreas Kauffer, and again briefly spoke with Andreas after the announcement while I was in Paranal. Rest assured the ESO management understands that this was an Australian government decision based on finances, going against the will of the Australian astronomical community who also saw opportunities for exciting technological and industry engagement. My expectation is that existing commitments from ESO will be honoured with Australia as a valued partner, and there may be opportunities for new targeted partnerships in the future where Australia provides unique capability. However, the focus of The Australian community is now on “Plan B”. It is important that we engage in this early from ANU, which is why Stuart, Brian and I have called an initial meeting for tomorrow, and the first national town hall meeting is next week.
Congratulations are due to several RSAA individuals and teams. The Artemis II mission downlinked data and video to our new Quantum Optical Ground Station, which is an incredible achievement in supporting the first crewed mission to the moon in 50 years. I know the whole team, led by Francis Bennet, has been working very hard to enable this and I hope they feel a great sense of pride. Read further on in this edition of Lunations to hear more about the Artemis II mission from Francis.
Recent RSAA graduate James Beattie was awarded a Hubble fellowship, showing that our graduates are amongst the best in the world.
Our overall impact has been recognised as Australia’s only top-50 institute in the world in a recent paper (https://arxiv.org/pdf/2603.20454). Read on to this month’s research byte to hear about Katie Grasha’s work as 2nd author in a paper on pushing Galactic archaeology beyond our Galaxy to NGC 1365.
