NASA’s Pam Melroy on remote robotics & the Australian space sector

By Andrew Curran, Correspondent, Australia in Space

When NASA Deputy Director Pam Melroy touched down in Australia in February, it wasn't unfamiliar territory to her. Melroy surprised many when she moved to Adelaide at the start of 2018 to work with the local space industry there. However, that experience gave the former space shuttle commander a deep insight into the Australian space sector. It now also provides Australia with a firm ally in the upper echelons of the world's biggest space agency.

Melroy's visit was shorter this time, but she managed to cut a swathe through Sydney and Perth and stayed long enough to visit high schools, universities, space businesses, and also give a keynote talk.

In that speech to a capacity crowd at an American Chamber of Commerce in Australia event in Perth on February 10, 2023, Melroy listed a roll call of historical space events where Australia and the US had co-operated closely.

"Australia has been a crucial partner to the US since NASA began. Since 1958 there have been 13 major NASA space tracking missions in Australia. The first images of Apollo 11 landing on the moon came through Australia and were then beamed to the world," she said.

Melroy also highlighted more recent events, such as then Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison visiting NASA headquarters in Washington D.C. in 2019 to sign a letter of intent and commit AUD150 million to help develop Artemis.

Melroy told the Perth lunchtime audience that Australia was one of NASA's first international partners to back up their cooperation talk with real money. She said it was a gesture deeply appreciated by the space agency. Melroy also referenced a series of launches in 2022 that made headlines around Australia.

Last year, NASA partnered with Australian space company, Equatorial Launch Australia (ELA), to send three rockets into space from the Arnhem Space Centre on the Gove Peninsula in the Northern Territory. What was just another space launch in a busy year of space launches was notable for two reasons – it was the first commercial space launch from Australian soil, and it was NASA's first launch from a fully commercial spaceport. By 2025, ELA hopes to send 50 rockets a year into orbit from the Arnhem Space Centre. It also sees itself as a serious competitor to the only other significant launch site close to the Equator, the French Government's Kourou launch site in French Guiana.

"Australia is in a unique location not just for ground communications," said Melroy when discussing why NASA partnered with ELA. "Australia also provides us with global coverage and helps us understand the atmosphere of the Earth and that upper region of this part of the world."

Melroy's speech wasn't just a diplomatic callout of historical space events. She pinpointed where she saw Australia's future in the global space sector, and it wasn't competing with the French Government. Instead, it was exploiting a very particular Australian field of expertise –remote robotics.

That expertise has its origins in Australia's mining and resources sector. In the north of Western Australia, where temperatures can reach 50°C by day and sub-zero at night, not much survives, and the area isn't friendly for humans. But it is rich in minerals, rare earths, and ores. Out of necessity, mining and resource companies have developed highly sophisticated machines to do the work and go places where people cannot.

"When I lived in Australia in 2018 and I talked to industry and travelled around the country, I was truly astounded at the amazing robotic and remote operations capabilities that I found in Western Australia, and knowing what it takes to support humans and science in remote locations, I immediately saw the connection and potential for Artemis and saw that this was going to be a critical in the future for Australia," said Melroy. "No one can catch up with Australia in this area, so while tremendous things have happened in the space industry in Australia, I think the future here is what's happening in remote robotics."

Remote robotics is familiar territory to Melroy. While living in Australia, she was involved in establishing the Australian Remote Operations for Space and Earth consortium (AROSE), which is now involved in transferring that remote robotics knowledge from the mining and resources sector to the space sector.

AROSE is based in Perth. It wasn't for that reason that Melroy visited the city, although catching up with old friends was an added attraction. Due to the work on remote robotics coming out of the local mining and resources sectors and the strong financial support of the Western Australia State Government, Perth has emerged as something of a hotbed of space startups and support infrastructure.

In addition to AROSE, Perth is also home to Fugro's multi-million-dollar Australia Space Automation AI and Robotics Control Complex (SpAARC), a facility in Australia that trains, tests and controls remote and autonomous operations in space and other unfriendly environments.

“SpAARC was just an idea when I last visited three years ago," said Melroy. "Now, it is a great example of how infrastructure can support multiple activities which raise the capabilities of industry, academia, and the country as a whole."

Against that background, NASA's decision to base one of three new lunar exploration ground sites, or LEGS, in Australia isn't surprising. The space agency still needs to fix a precise location, but Melroy said Western Australia's clear skies and low moisture levels give it a competitive advantage in such contests.

Melroy told the audience that the three new lunar exploration ground sites would be critical to the success of the Artemis program and help facilitate enhanced direct-toEarth communications capabilities for lunar missions.

The former astronaut has logged over 900 days in space in a career that started in the mid-1990s. Before that, Melroy clocked up over 6,000 flight hours as a US Air Force aircraft commander, including over 200 combat hours. Her reputation opens the doors to the offices of prime ministers and presidents worldwide. Now in her early sixties, she remains a passionate advocate for space.

"Going to space is hard – make no mistake," said Melroy. "But doing so lifts a country's capability in science and technology, and that has spillover effects and will spinout into other capabilities and solve other problems that a country has. In addition, with a growing commercial space industry, the economic benefits of a high-growth, high-tech industry cannot be understated. And besides that, it is just exciting. It's an incredible inspiration to marvel at the depth of the cosmos and ponder our place in it."