Tag Archive for: SpaceX

Space and Australia: opportunities in the second Trump administration

Enhancing space cooperation between Australia and the United States should be a priority for Canberra in the second Trump administration. In defence terms, that could include strengthening collaboration between the US and Australia in space domain awareness and through collaboration on space control. Leveraging locally developed space capability through assured government support of Australia’s commercial space sector is also important, as is sovereign space launch to ensure space access, resilience and ultimately deterrence by denial in space.

Space is likely to be a greater priority for the incoming Trump administration than the previous Biden administration, particularly given guidance in Project 2025. First, the Trump administration will seek to get NASA’s Artemis program back on trajectory after continued delays have seen the initial goal of a lunar landing in 2024 pushed back to 2027, while promoting rapid growth of the commercial space sector. Second, expansion of the US Space Force—established by Trump in 2019—to respond to growing counterspace threats by China and Russia is highly likely, again in line with Project 2025.

Trump’s inauguration speech talked of ‘planting the US flag on Mars’, suggesting he has also endorsed Elon Musk’s SpaceX-led prioritisation of getting humans on the Martian surface as early as 2029. However, if this focus on Mars becomes the centrepiece of US space policy, it will draw the US’s attention away from the Moon, potentially handing the lead in any effort to return to the lunar surface  over to China. Trump therefore needs to delicately manage this approach, as well as Musk’s role and ambitions.

Australia supports the United States’ Artemis project and is set to send a lunar rover to the Moon by 2026. With Trump likely to fast-track Artemis, Australian commercial space companies should be supported by the government to play a larger and more visible role in Artemis. For example, Australian-built small satellites could be delivered to lunar orbit to support surface activities, taking advantage of sovereign space launch to maximise Australia’s direct role in Artemis.

In terms of space and defence, there will be new opportunities for the ADF to increase its role in space. Australia should consider how the ADF can practically support the US Space Force if it takes a more proactive approach to the mission of space control in response to Chinese and Russian anti-satellite threats. Once again, sovereign space launch can play a key role in this new mission for the ADF in space.

While Australia has embraced a more sophisticated approach to the space domain in defence policy, the Albanese government has made significant cuts to investment into space, and lacks a national space strategy to guide Australian space activities. With a federal election looming, the winning party will need to reverse that drift in space policy and clearly commit to supporting civil and defence space activities, including in collaboration with the US and other partners. That will be particularly important as the Trump administration adopts a more ambitious approach in space. Australia must step up and increase its burden-share in orbit.

On the civil side, a good place to start would be the preparation and release of a national space strategy that guides future space activities and investment as a whole-of-nation enterprise. That could also see the Australian Space Agency become a statutory agency, supported by a dedicated minister for space policy (as has been done in New Zealand).

Australia’s space policy agenda must include building greater opportunities for small and medium enterprises, including to support international space activities such as Artemis. Sovereign space launch should play a key role, but small-satellite manufacturing and ground-based elements must also be fully supported. The goal should be an end-to-end space ecosystem that offers growth and stability to space enterprises, ending years of drift and uncertainty. That would also enable the civil and commercial space sectors to support defence requirements with locally developed capabilities.

Australia also needs continuing and closer cooperation with the US on both space domain awareness and collaboration towards developing common space control capabilities to protect Australian and US satellites in orbit. Space control will demand practical capability both on the Earth’s surface and, where necessary, in orbit to actively defend against counterspace threats. Space domain awareness is an essential starting point for space control, but practical effectors are needed to counter actual threats. Australia should support the development of such a capability, perhaps under Pillar 2 of AUKUS.

Finally, a major part of space control is assured access to space. It is important for government to support the development of sovereign space launch capabilities—both Australian launch sites and locally developed launch vehicles—to allow Australia and its allies to maintain resilient and survivable space support to terrestrial forces. The ability to rapidly deploy small satellites to augment existing capability, or reconstitute lost capability after an adversary attack, reinforces space resilience and strengthens space deterrence by denial. In the next National Defence Strategy, to be released in 2026, sovereign space launch provided by commercial companies needs to be explicitly declared as an important capability for ADF space policy.

SpaceX’s reusable rocket technology will have implications for Australia

I attended the International Astronautical Congress in Adelaide in October 2017 and sat in on a presentation on the future of humanity in space by SpaceX CEO Elon Musk. He was talking about a large fully reusable rocket, called ‘BFR’ at the time, which was designed to revolutionise space access and, most importantly in Musk’s view, to realise his long-held goal of colonising Mars, making humans a multi-planet species.

Apart from being fully reusable, the BFR—now ‘Starship’—was designed to launch over 100 metric tonnes of payload—cargo or astronauts—into low earth orbit (LEO) and, with on-orbit refuelling, send that payload on to the moon, Mars or even beyond. Its reusability promised much lower launch costs and, depending on how many Starships were to be built, full reusability opened up the prospect of regular space access at around US$2 million per launch. In comparison, NASA’s Space Launch System, which is billions of dollars over budget and years behind schedule, will fly once a year, isn’t reusable and costs around US$2 billion per launch.

Fast forward to now, and SpaceX has just successfully flown—and landed—a test vehicle called ‘Starship SN15’. That comes after several tests ended in fiery explosions and spectacular crashes. The successful SN15 test is a real breakthrough for SpaceX, and opens up a path for additional tests in coming months.

SpaceX’s approach with Starship development is following that it used to develop its Falcon 9 partly reusable launch vehicle. The methodology involves developing capability through operational testing, which saw numerous failures with Falcon 9 rockets before they were perfected. They’re now flying regularly. The next steps with Starship are further tests to higher altitudes, and then orbital flights using the ‘Super Heavy’ booster stage as early as July, with full operational service by 2023.

Starship opens up the prospect of rapid and regular low-cost, high-volume space access. The sheer capacity of the vehicle means that it can deploy very large payloads, such as big satellites or space station modules. Alternatively, large numbers of smaller satellites can be deployed in one launch.

For human spaceflight, Starship will play a pivotal role in NASA’s Project Artemis, with SpaceX being awarded a contract to provide the landing system to get astronauts from the Gateway lunar orbit station to the moon, though a protest lodged by competitors has led to the contract being paused pending arbitration. Musk also advocates Starship as the key capability for getting people to Mars in coming decades.

The potential national security and military applications offered by Starship also need to be considered. SpaceX has promoted Starship as a means of rapid point-to-point transport across the earth, carrying either troops or cargo to a distant operational deployment within 30 minutes. Starship’s payload capacity would provide the equivalent of a C-17 cargo aircraft’s load anywhere on the planet within an hour. There are obvious risks in this idea, especially  the challenge of distinguishing incoming Starships carrying troops or cargo from ballistic missiles. The potential for miscalculation and escalation in a crisis would be considerable.

Perhaps a better option would be the use of Starship to rapidly deploy large military payloads into orbit, to augment or reconstitute satellites destroyed by adversary counterspace capabilities. There’s also increasing debate within the US Space Force over the moon and cislunar space as a region of military competition, especially in light of Chinese and Russian space activities.

The Center for Strategic and International Studies’ Defense against the dark arts in space report postulated a Chinese attack on US communication satellites in geosynchronous orbit from the cislunar region, and greater interest is emerging in extending space domain awareness out to cislunar space. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency project ‘Draco’ is designed to develop a nuclear-powered spacecraft for that role. It’s the sort of payload that Starship could easily deliver into lunar orbit, or to a Lagrange point—where earth’s and moon’s gravity are balanced— allowing long-endurance deployments at minimal cost.

The key importance of SpaceX’s Starship is the promise of low-cost, rapid space access to deploy large payloads into orbit. Critical to that is reusability, allowing rapid turnaround and a high launch cadence. That’s the game changer, and other US companies such as Blue Origin and Rocketlab, Chinese companies, and Europe’s Arianespace are now pursuing reusable launch vehicle designs.

The case for reusability for Australian launch providers needs to be balanced by the potential low cost of production of rocket hardware, including engines, and the requirements dictated by payload mass. Smaller satellite payloads of the type that Australia is likely to pursue in coming years aren’t likely to justify the extra expense for local space launch providers of developing a reusable rocket. It makes more sense to emphasise the low-cost, rapid production of expendable launch vehicles to match expected demand from either local or overseas customers. However, once Australian companies begin developing larger rocket systems, as they certainly will, reusability needs to be considered as an option, particularly for heavier payloads.

That may open up new opportunities for the Australian Defence Force’s use of sovereign launch capabilities. It’s possible that 10 years from now the ADF Space Command could manage sovereign-controlled satellites and be able to rely on sovereign launch capability provided by Australian commercial launch providers. In that scenario, if the ADF urgently required additional space support during a crisis, it could mandate rapid launches of stockpiled small satellites to meet its communications and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance requirements. If Australia were to be faced with an adversary counterspace campaign attacking our larger satellites in geosynchronous orbit, the ADF could quickly direct an Australian company to launch additional satellites to fill gaps.

Waiting months for  a launch wouldn’t be an option, as our forces operating in the air, sea and land domains would need space support urgently. Relying on a US launch provider such as SpaceX would be risky, as they are likely to be fully tasked with supporting US operational requirements in a crisis. An Australian launch provider will need to be able to deploy satellites quickly—and locally developed reusable launchers might be the best way to do that.

Cheap, reusable space launchers are still years away for Chinese military

China’s range of space launchers is proliferating remarkably. But the state industry is still years from giving the country, especially its military, the low costs of reusable rockets.

Instead, the industry is doing what it likes most, driving down costs with large-scale production of traditional, non-reusable launchers. Thanks to that, its launch costs are even lower than the prices (not costs) of Elon Musk’s SpaceX, which has become a mainstream launch provider for the US Space Force.

China’s main space contractor, the sprawling state organisation China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC), flew its latest product successfully on 11 March, a year after a first, unsuccessful flight. The rocket is Long March 7A, the second version of the Long March 7 series. This version can throw heavier satellites to geostationary transfer orbit than China’s main launcher for that mission, Long March 3B, and it should be much cheaper than Long March 5, which has greater capability.

The Long March 7 series was one of three types originally planned in a long-running program to rationalise and update the country’s suite of launchers, increasing payload sizes and getting rid of toxic propellant. New versions of the other two types, the Long March 5 and Long March 6 series, have also appeared, with more in the works. And a fourth member of the family, Long March 8, first flew in December (successfully).

Long March 8 is CASC’s answer to the SpaceX challenge. When plans to develop it were revealed in 2017, it was to be a non-reusable rocket that would achieve low costs by being made of modules from its siblings. Doing so would simplify development and raise production rates. This idea was no doubt agreeable to CASC, because it would help keep factories busy and people employed.

It did not satisfy someone, however. One senses the influence of CASC’s chief customer, the Chinese military, which at that time was watching its US counterpart begin to use SpaceX’s mostly reusable Falcon 9 rocket. (Most of a Falcon 9, the first stage, returns to earth for reuse. SpaceX can also recover the costly fairing that covers the payload at the top.)

Whoever gave the order, CASC changed tack in 2018: Long March 8 would have a reusable first stage, it said then. Now Long March 8 is in service, but it’s not reusable yet. China (meaning CASC) won’t produce a reusable launcher until 2025, the group said in November. That should be a version of the Long March 8, which will land vertically, like the Falcon 9. A reusable version of Long March 6, a smaller launcher, is also in the works.

Making an orbital rocket land on its tail is hard, which is why it didn’t happen until 2015. High among the challenges is precisely controlling the thing. Related to that, thrust has to come down from maximum at launch to a very low value on landing, because at that point the stage is very light, almost empty of propellant. So the rocket has to take off with many engines (nine on a Falcon 9) but land with only one, the thrust of which is further reduced by deep throttling, another tricky problem.

CASC’s launcher and engine subsidiaries haven’t been ready for this. The engine of the Long March 5, 6 and 7, the YF-100, is probably more powerful than the ideal for a reusable configuration. Also, it wasn’t designed for reusability and can’t throttle deeply. So CASC is working on throttling and making the YF-100 robust enough to fly more than once. The group is also the apparent customer for a privately developed reusable engine that could replace the YF-100. Guidance and control technology for landing is needed, too.

With so much to be done, it’s easy to see why the target for getting a Long March 8 version to land vertically is still so distant. Other concepts for reusability from CASC and state rival China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation look even further away, except maybe recovery of stages that drop back to earth under parachutes.

Meanwhile, companies in China’s new private space sector are developing complete launchers that are supposed eventually to become reusable. Best known among these companies are iSpace and Landspace. Sources in the industry say the private launch firms have lured away many of CASC’s best people, another problem for the state group. On the other hand, the private companies will need to beware their employees bringing across the stifling culture of personal connections that is rife in the Chinese government.

It’s unclear when private Chinese companies will begin flying reusable launchers. ISpace looks like it’s in the lead, but its rocket will have less than a quarter of Long March 8’s launch capability.

However quickly private companies progress, the military may keep paying for throw-away rockets anyway, because of a peculiarity in Chinese economics and government. Chinese state companies are supposed to compete in a market, but they can pull strings, especially if the firms are big, belong to the central government and have nationally important roles. CASC has all those advantages. So officials may well keep private companies out of the government market, or largely so.

Meanwhile, CASC is achieving pretty low costs thanks to high demand for an old rocket model that was developed in the 1990s with technology going back to the 1960s. This is the Long March 3A series. Conveniently for comparison, its main version, Long March 3B, exactly equals Falcon 9 (in reusable mode) in terms of payload to geosynchronous transfer orbit, at 5.5 tonnes. SpaceX charges civil customers a highly competitive US$62 million for such a mission. (Military launches cost more.) But a Chinese official told me in 2019 that improved processes and high production rates had driven the cost of CASC’s launches down in recent years to about US$50 million from US$70 million.

SpaceX’s costs are still far lower at just US$28 million per launch. As the only company that can reuse first stages, it has a lot of headroom for profit.

The US thinks about space warfare

The last couple of weeks have been big ones for space in the US. Vice President Pence chaired the newly re-formed US National Space Council, the peak body for charting US space policy, which had lain moribund under the previous Obama administration. The key news for the military was that a full-scale strategic review of space warfare was underway, headed by National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster.

The review is reportedly seeking to strengthen the safety, stability, sustainability and resilience of US space activities. The goal is a capability that will allow the US to deter, and, when necessary, defeat adversaries’ space and counter-space threats. One plank will be building partnerships with the commercial space sector to ensure US pre-eminence and to maintain and extend US human and robotic presence beyond Earth.

Sustainment of US space capability implies a number of key developments. First, the US needs not only to protect existing space capabilities, but also to be able to rapidly reconstitute lost capabilities. That demands an effective launch capability, and an ability to exploit new ‘Space 2.0’ technologies as a surge capacity for launching replacement satellites quickly in a crisis. The commercial space launch sector, with players such as SpaceX and Blue Origin using innovative reusable rocket technology, is well placed to contribute. SpaceX recently launched the US Air Force’s X-37B on its latest highly classified mission.

The emphasis on space control—the use of offensive and defensive counter-space capabilities—continues a trend begun under Obama in response to Chinese and Russian anti-satellite (ASAT) activities, including testing of ASATs and delivery systems in 2007 and 2014. Obama initially adopted a policy of strategic restraint on space weapons, instead relying on legal norms and dissuasion through space situational awareness to prevent the weaponisation of space. It kept offensive space control in its back pocket in case softer methods failed to work. Well, they didn’t work, and the Trump administration must now wrestle with this issue.

US Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson seems ready to move from strategic restraint to active offensive and defensive space control capabilities. She notes, ‘We have to be able to do something if things are going wrong. Offensive weapons will be needed. We need the ability to create effects, defend ourselves and deter actions.’ Those comments coincide with a new CSIS report, Escalation and deterrence in the second space age that considers space as a contested domain, examines how the US can best deter threats, and gives an overview of current thinking on the nature of space war.

The CSIS report makes clear that deterrence in space will require the US to clearly communicate that it has the capability to withstand and respond to an attack. That in turn will demand ‘a more refined US declaratory policy that identifies and sequences US escalation options in response to an attack in space’ (p. 31). The report says that the emphasis should be on identifying threats clearly and recognising grey-zone actions that are reversible as potentially non-strategic and thus not warranting escalation. It reinforces the importance of building resiliency into US and allied space capabilities, including by disaggregating space systems via small satellites to avoid a catastrophic loss of space support. But the report also states that the US must have a suite of capabilities and a willingness to use them in order for space deterrence to be credible. Those include the full range of offensive counter-space capabilities.

The CSIS report provides a firm policy foundation for the US government to proceed with its strategic review of space warfare. While space may be seen as a global commons, it’s no sanctuary from the use of force. A more mature and pragmatic space deterrence policy, backed up by credible offensive and defensive counter-space capabilities, is essential if the US wishes to meet the challenge posed by China, Russia and other opponents who are moving determinedly to acquire the means to threaten US space capabilities.

Australia, as a key US ally, needs to get on board with this effort. We should seek to share the burden with the US in a contested and congested space domain. Australia already supports the US through enhanced space situational awareness with the relocation of optical telescopes and C band space surveillance radars to the North West Cape. But merely offering the ground segment isn’t sufficient. Given the clear importance to the US of rapid reconstitution capability via small satellites, Australia should seek to contribute to that capability using locally developed satellites to meet both US and Australian military needs, launched from Australian sites. Australia is geographically well positioned to access polar and equatorial low-Earth orbits from sites in Northern Australia, has a burgeoning space industry, and will have a new space agency to take the lead. Now is the time for Australia to take burden-sharing into orbit.

Elon Musk’s ‘BFR’ and 21st-century space war

Space fans had a couple of big days last week at the International Astronautical Congress in Adelaide. The government’s announcement of an Australian space agency on the first day of the five-day conference was important enough (my thoughts here). But things really took off on the final day with an address by SpaceX head Elon Musk to 5,000 attendees and many more on the internet.

Musk updated his plan for colonising Mars, originally released at last year’s meeting, and made clear that he has thought more about the economics and how to make the vision practicable and affordable. He’s scaled back his spacecraft, the Interplanetary Transport (IPT), which is to be launched on a large, fully reusable booster called the ‘BFR’ (you can work out the acronym). He’s also broadened its missions beyond simply colonising Mars to include establishing and supporting a lunar base, hauling large cargo into Earth orbit, supporting the International Space Station, and offering rapid intercontinental air travel—anywhere, point to point, in under an hour for the price of an economy-class air ticket. You can find the presentation on the SpaceX website here.

In watching Musk’s presentation, I was far more taken with his decision to support lunar operations with the IPT, and his recognition of the BFR’s potential for transforming the launching of payloads into Earth orbit, than I was about Mars bases. Musk admits that timelines of the mid-2020s for Mars landings are very aspirational, but the BFR has more immediate commercial and defence implications that need to be considered.

In the presentation, Musk made clear that the BFR can send 150 tons to low-Earth orbit (LEO), making it more capable than an Apollo-era Saturn V (135 tons). Given its full reusability, Musk argues that it also comes out as the cheapest way to get payload into space. Apart from the sunk cost of building the booster (paid once), the only outlay for repeated missions to orbit is the cost of the fuel and associated launch costs (access to the pad, personnel). Furthermore, the BFR is designed to be rapidly turned around for additional launches, unlike the Saturn V or the NASA SLS, both of which are lost after the launch.

In a military context, the very low cost of the BFR, combined with the responsive launch rate and high payload, would reinforce the value of operationally responsive space for supporting military operations, particularly if one launch could put 20 or 30 satellites into orbit. In an era of contested space, where adversaries are developing effective counter-space (ASAT) capabilities, this is an example of disruptive innovation. Whereas in the past armed forces had to wait years for a single satellite to be launched on a single rocket, with the BFR they could be launched en masse on demand, provided the satellites are available.

Alternatively, very large satellites, which were previously impossible due to high launch costs and the lack of large boosters, can be designed for more capable intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance; communications; or other military tasks. High-end strategic space capabilities have always been limited by the size of the launch vehicle. For example, NASA’s fully expendable Delta IV Heavy is currently the largest booster, capable of lifting 31 tons to LEO. Space X’s partly reusable Falcon Heavy, due to fly later this year, will lift 54 tons to LEO. But both pale in comparison to the BFR’s proposed 150 tons to LEO. So the possibilities for really big military satellites are clear.

Big satellites are, of course, more vulnerable and risky, particularly given growing ASAT threats. It may be more sensible to embrace disaggregation of space support among larger numbers of smaller, cheaper satellites, and emphasise rapid reconstitution of lost space capability through launching replacements in a crisis. That approach lends itself to large reusable boosters launching multiple satellites, and implies that any military conflict in space would see one side seek to degrade deployed satellites, while their opponents race to replace lost capability. Here the advantage would go to the side which can have the greatest frequency of launches. With the rapid (hourly!) turnaround for launch that Musk is promoting, the BFR would beat expendable rockets every time. However, you can’t have a one-horse race, and the most likely competitor to the US and its allies in space is China.

It’s important to watch China’s development of reusable space launch capability. Beijing has already announced the formation of a commercial space entity that’s building a reusable rocket remarkably similar to SpaceX’s current partly reusable ‘Falcon 9’ booster. There was a large Chinese presence at IAC 2017, and it seems likely that China will do what it has consistently done in the past and emulate or copy good ideas from the West. A Chinese equivalent to Musk’s BFR would dramatically boost China’s ability to operate in space, including for military space activities. SpaceX and Elon Musk don’t have a monopoly on this technology, or an ability to prevent reusable rocket systems from proliferating. Watch this space!

Why Australia needs a space agency

The world of space has entered a new era. Over the past two months, barriers thought unbreakable just five years ago have been shattered.

In the US, SpaceX re-landed first-stage boosters of its second-hand Falcon 9 rockets, and re-used spacecraft on a supply mission to the International Space Station. In New Zealand, start-up Rocket Labs launched a rocket mostly made of 3D printed parts.

With significant government-led investment in the space industry in Asia, particularly in China and India (alongside some big ambitions), one would conclude that the future of space lies with these rising powers, both of which have been accelerating their space programs.

But the numbers show otherwise (Figure 1).

Data from Space Launch Report.

This year, SpaceX alone will perform more launches than any other nation—more than the US, China, Russia or Europe. This disruption by SpaceX isn’t just because of aggressive cost reductions; reusable rockets and spacecraft can significantly expand market potential by negating long production lead times, which have hampered the industry in the past. Yet, while the US remains the world’s leader in new launch technologies, competition in coming decades is inevitable and already on the horizon.

In the short term, private citizens and taxpayers in Australia are going to reap the benefits of new technology and competition in launches, which will lower the cost of space access. With the US as the pioneer and early benefactor of a larger space market (and therefore greater space capability), Australia is likely to continue to enjoy the security of American space dominance. But, in the long term, an order of magnitude reduction in launch costs will have significant implications for us.

Last week, Flavia Nardini, the CEO of Australian start-up Fleet Space, wrote an open letter to the Australian Government imploring it to establish a space agency. Space capability is no longer just an expensive status symbol showing off the industrial and technological prowess of a nation—it provides tangible economic value. Yet, Australia’s space industry is only in its infancy, employing 11,000 workers and contributing around $4 billion a year to the economy.

Australia will find it difficult, if not impossible, to compete on the scale of private enterprises such as SpaceX and Arianespace, or rising powers like China. But, on the other end of the spectrum, there are opportunities for us to excel in support capabilities: microsatellite launches, advanced solar technology, mission support, test ranges and ground stations.

Establishing a space agency doesn’t necessitate investment in a sovereign launch capability; space agencies deliver value by providing a central point for academia, industry, defence and foreign entities to collaborate among themselves and with government and to facilitate the flow of knowledge and capital.

While the economic arguments for an Australian space agency are sound, there are also significant geostrategic reasons.

Earlier this year, the Center for Strategic and International Studies released a report on the implications of ultra-low-cost access to space. With lower launch costs, space-based weapons and counter-weapons systems on a mass scale become increasingly feasible, as does rapid international transport. Commercialisation of the space industry will also challenge controls to limit the proliferation of missile and space technologies. Because procurement cycles extend into decades for sophisticated technologies, decisions about exploiting the benefits of such systems (or avoiding the risks) are not far off. To meet these challenges, Australia will need to domestically develop, sustain and leverage expertise in the space sector. Therefore, space policy can’t simply fall under the umbrella of the Department of Defence; a whole-of-government approach will be required.

With the internet and telecommunications, the Australian civilian and defence communities have taken for granted instant, high-fidelity communication, but our communication channels with our allies aren’t as reliable as they seem. Our connections with the rest of the world are concentrated in fibre channels to three cities, easily severable by the 250+ submarines that will be operating in the Asia–Pacific by 2030.

In that scenario, the only remaining communication capabilities left for Australia, aside from short-wave radio, are satellite systems, which Australia currently has no capability to launch.

Without a space agency, Australia will simply never have a coherent, unified strategy to achieve defined goals and capabilities in space. The option of a space agency isn’t about making a decision—it’s about giving decision-makers options.