A new breed of spacecraft engine is undergoing its first indoor test flights, thanks to a giant ‘wombat’ on the outskirts of Australia’s capital.
Australian Plasma Thruster being tested in the Space Simulation Facility at Mount Stromlo. Credit: Naomi Mathers, ANU
The Australian National University has developed a plasma thruster that uses electricity to ionise gas and produce thrust, allowing the engine to run for longer and with much less fuel than a chemical rocket.
This makes it ideal for manoeuvring satellites in orbit, or for extended voyages to places like Mars. However, rocket manufacturers need to be sure it works before trusting it on multimillion-dollar satellites.
THIS SATELLITE LASER RANGING STATION MANAGED BY GEOSCIENCE AUSTRALIA AT MOUNT STROMLO OBSERVATORY NEAR CANBERRA WAS BUILT AND IS OPERATED BY EOS. CREDIT: CRAIG ELLIS.
An Australian company, Electro-Optic Systems (EOS), is one of the biggest developers of large, high-precision, optical research telescopes in the world. In fact, EOS has designed, built and installed the SkyMapper telescope and its enclosure at Siding Spring Observatory in New South Wales.
The headquarters of EOS is at the Mt Stromlo Observatory near Canberra, but its reach is international. Equipment the company has installed include the University of Tokyo’s two-metre telescope at Mount Haleakala, Hawai’i, a two-metre telescope in the Himalayas for the Indian Institute of Astrophysics, and the 2.4 metre Advanced Planet Finder (APF) at the University of California’s Lick Observatory. Continue reading Australian company brings the Universe within range→
THE ENCLOSURE OF THE GIANT 8.1-METRE GEMINI SOUTH TELESCOPE AT CERRO PACHÓN IN THE ANDES MOUNTAINS. CHILE. CREDIT: GEMINI OBSERVATORY.
The Mount Stromlo Observatory of the Australian National University (ANU) is rising from the ashes of Canberra’s 2003 bushfires, after an investment of millions of dollars into cutting-edge technologies and facilities.
The Mount Stromlo site—home to the ANU’s Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics (RSAA)—no longer acts as a research observatory, but rather as a high-tech hub developing astronomical instruments for the world’s most advanced telescopes. Staff at the RSAA’s Advanced Instrumentation and Technology Centre have already built multimillion dollar instruments, such as the Near-Infrared Integral-Field Spectrograph (NIFS) for the Gemini North Telescope which provides images in the infrared equivalent to the Hubble Space Telescope in the optical range. Continue reading Mount Stromlo Observatory rising from the ashes→
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