Australia has a large amount of space and spatial related R&D activity occurring across the publicly funded research sector and in the hundreds of Australian SME’s. This research activity is fragmented, lacks critical mass and prior to the recent development of SmartSat CRC, lacks focus against an over-arching conception of where the nation needs to be in a decade’s time and beyond.

For space and spatial innovation to lead to successful and enduring outcomes of national and international significance decadal plans need to be laid and a coordinated approach articulated and agreed to by the key contributors.

SmartSat CRC has identified a series of technologies as priorities for its collaborative research in a roadmap. Whilst this roadmap has been set up to serve the needs of the SmartSat CRC’s 100 partners and has been designed to serve both the ASA’s priorities and those of Defence, it represents only part of the national R&D requirements. Other important parts are provided by CSIRO, Defence (primarily through DST), universities, government agencies (e.g. GA) and companies. Which areas of R&D represent the highest priority for Australia? Are they sufficiently resourced at present? Candidate priority areas include quantum key distribution, PNT and its convergence with communications, digital engineering (building on BIM’s), Digital Twins, spatial knowledge infrastructure, and optical/hybrid RF communications amongst others.