Australia will revamp a 45-year-old Alice Springs ground station and hire dozens of staff to support it over at least 15 years to ensure continued access to Earth observation data, after the government abandoned an ambitious plan to build and launch its own satellites.
New information released by Geoscience Australia details its $449 million allocation in the May Budget that followed the controversial government decision last year to scrap the $1.2 billion National Space Mission for Earth Observation.
Scrapping the mission saved the Albanese government $452 million but angered the domestic space sector and left government advisers to manage a potential fallout with the US on space, before signing on to the next Landsat program earlier this year.
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