Director's update

We acknowledge and celebrate the First Australians on whose traditional lands we meet, and pay our respect to the elders past and present.

Welcome to our monthly AITC newsletter. I believe it is times such as these that we need to celebrate our great achievements even more than usual, and the wonderful staff who work so hard to make them happen.  

Key highlights for October 2020:

As part of the next stage of the ANU recovery plan, the school has received guidance from the College regarding the budget reduction for 2021 on recurrent funding. Due to a combination of size, value to the University in terms of both ERA and income, RSAA was allocated the lowest budget reduction target of 8%. While the AITC receives a relatively low portion of the recurrent funding, hence was somewhat isolated from the budget reduction story, this news is very well received.

The team has worked diligently to maintain our excellent performance with regards to hitting our financial targets and delivering excellent quality research and products. October has been another great month and it’s due to all of you. My thanks go to Roger and the discipline leads for ensuring our operations are effective and efficient in very difficult times.

We have several proposals under preparation in Q4 including several linkage projects, a future fellow, LIEF and non-standard calls such as defence space domain awareness. The team has had recent success via the SmartSat CRC and ACT government PIP program. This work ensures the future pipeline of activities for the AITC.

Lastly, confgratualtions go to Francis Bennet for becoming a finalist in the Innovator of the Year category of the Defence Connect’s Australian Defence Industry Awards 2020. Well done Francis, and good luck!

Best,

Anna

Technology Priority Theme

AITC Technology program update for October

This update comes to you from Rob, Jamie and Noelia

» read more

Services Priority Theme

This month the National Space Test Facility (NSTF) has successfully performed Low Earth Orbit atomic oxygen interaction experiments for the University of Auckland and vibration tests for Skykraft.

Also, a number of new funding agreements for the NSTF were signed for 2021, in particular with:

• The University of New South Wales
• Fleet Space
• Skykraft

Discovery Priority Theme

DISCOVERY

The 2020 Nobel Prize in Physics validates high resolution imaging techniques, including Laser Guide Star Adaptive Optics and Interferometry as powerful and Nobel-prize enabling observational tools for astronomy!

A picture of the 4 Maunakea guidestar lasers pointing simultaneously at the Galactic Centre (credit: Sean Goebel) is also visible here 

World Space Week

AITC Women (Professor Anna Moore, Professor Celine d'Orgeville, Dr Doris Grosse and Dr Noelia Martinez-Rey) featured in World Space Week talking on the subject of Space environment and space situational awareness 

So tell us, what do you do around here?

What I try to do is to ensure that the AITC projects and activities have the necessary resources and facilities in order that they can operate efficiently and effectively.

What I actually do is probably better judged by others...