Trans-Tasman partnership to provide world-class satellite positioning services

Southern Positioning Augmentation Network to deliver more accurate, reliable satellite positioning system for Australasia, bringing benefits to a range of sectors over next 20 years.

Land Information Minister Damien O’Connor announced on 16 September a joint TransTasman partnership that will provide Australasia with worldleading satellite positioning services that are up to 50 times more accurate, boosting future economic productivity, sustainability and safety.

New Zealand and Australia have partnered to deliver the Southern Positioning Augmentation Network (SouthPAN), with the first services available in the next few weeks.

SouthPAN is a partnership between Geoscience Australia and Toitū Te Whenua Land Information New Zealand (LINZ) under the Australia New Zealand Science, Research and Innovation Cooperation Agreement. Lockheed Martin Australia has been awarded a $1.18bn, 19-year contract by Geoscience Australia to deliver the project.

“The SouthPAN project will immediately improve the accuracy, reliability and availability of existing satellite positioning systems in Australasia,” Minister O’Connor said.

“Independent analysis of SouthPAN shows it has the potential to benefit many major sectors in New Zealand from transport, construction and utilities to agriculture, forestry, and horticulture.

The quantified economic benefits from this are estimated to be $864m over the next 20 years and will provide New Zealanders with greater economic security into the future.

According to a 2019 report by EY the Satellite-Based Augmentation System (SBAS) “signals, are anticipated to set the foundation for a present value (PV) AUD $7.6b economic impact on the Australian and New Zealand economies over 30 years.”

SouthPAN will deliver a signal augmenting GPS and Galileo, which are only accurate to between 5 to 10 metres, making them accurate to as little as 10 centimetres – without the need for a mobile phone signal or internet.

“That will mean search and rescue can operate in poor weather conditions and remote places,” said the minister. “It will help drive innovation in fenceless farms and precision agriculture in ways that improve productivity and lift our sustainability credentials. Future applications will also help with tracking shipping as well as the use of drones and unmanned vehicles.”

According to LINZ, SouthPAN will achieve Safety of Life certification in 2028, which will allow aeroplanes, helicopters, and

unmanned aerial vehicles to use SouthPAN for navigation and landing. This will enable aircraft can fly safely in adverse weather conditions that they’re unable to currently operate in, reducing the likelihood of travel disruptions and enabling rescue services to be faster and safer.

“Space is among our fastest growing areas, and our local technical team will play an important role in delivering the benefits of SouthPAN capability to service many sectors including aviation, agriculture, transport, mining and other industries,” said David Ball, Regional Director of Space for Lockheed Martin Australia and New Zealand.

“Lockheed Martin is a global leader in satellite navigation technology, providing recent upgrades to the US Government’s GPS constellation. We look forward to working with the Australian and New Zealand Governments to deploy this worldclass technology.”

SouthPAN is the Southern Hemisphere’s first satellite navigation augmentation service.

Australia’s Minister for Resources, Hon Madeleine King, said the investment is a major commitment between the Australian and New Zealand governments, providing broad benefits for all of Australasia.

“SouthPAN will allow visually impaired citizens to navigate cities with pinpoint assistive technologies. For our Royal Flying Doctor Service, it will allow light aircraft to land more safely in remote rural areas in all weather conditions,” said Minister King.

Lockheed Martin Australia will work with the SouthPAN project team to establish a network of Global Navigation Satellite System reference stations and satellite uplink facilities that will enable communications and transmissions with the SouthPAN space infrastructure.

According to Minister O’Connor, New Zealand’s partnership with Australia was vital to accessing this technology and acknowledged them for partnering on this investment. “Without this partnership, the cost of entry would simply be too great for New Zealand to take on alone,” Damien O’Connor said.

The system is expected to be fully operational by 2028, and will be provided as a service for 19 years with an option to extend.

How it works The program will use a unique, Lockheed Martin-developed, Second-Generation Satellite-Based Augmentation System (SBAS), broadcasting on two frequencies to augment signals from two Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) constellations: the US Global Positioning System (GPS) and the European Union’s Galileo system.

The use of dual frequencies and multiple GNSS constellations results in enhanced integrity of data and accuracy, and it eliminates dependency on just one GNSS.

According to Lockheed Martin, the Second-Generation SBAS technology will receive and monitor basic signals data from multiple GNSS via a network of widelydistributed ground stations. The data will be collected by a SBAS testbed master station, which will compute corrections and integrity bounds for each GNSS satellite signal, and generate augmentation messages.

The new messages will be sent to an SBAS payload hosted aboard an Inmarsat geostationary Earth orbit satellite via an uplink antenna. The satellite then rebroadcasts the augmentation messages containing corrections and integrity data to the end users’ GNSS receivers.

The entire process takes less than six seconds.

Lockheed Martin provided the systems integration expertise in addition to a radio frequency uplink in Uralla, New South Wales. GMV-Spain provided “magicGNSS” processors, Inmarsat provided the geostationary satellite hosted navigation payload, and the Australia and New Zealand Cooperative Research Centre for Spatial Information coordinated the demonstrator SBAS test-bed SBAS test-bed projects.

Lockheed Martin’s experience with space-based navigation systems includes having produced the longlasting GPS IIR and IIR-M satellites in the GPS satellite constellation; and having developed (and producing) the US Space Force’s next generation GPS III/IIIF satellites.

It also maintains the GPS Architecture Evolution Plan ground control system, which operates the 31-satellite GPS constellation.