Radio astronomy produces another disruptive spinoff

CSIRO commercialisation specialist Dr Ilana Feain and Quasar CEO Mr Phil Ridley. CREDIT: CSIRO

A new Australian company is commercialising multi-beam technology developed for CSIRO’s ASKAP radio telescope, one of the SKA precursor telescopes in Western Australia. Quasar Satellite Technologies will use CSIRO’s phased array technology to communicate with hundreds of satellites at once, a breakthrough development.

Around 3,000 satellites already orbit Earth, and tens of thousands more are scheduled to be launched over the next decade. Each satellite needs to communicate with a home base on Earth. But current ground stations can usually only track one satellite at a time. This causes a significant bottleneck for industries that require space data, such as agricultural, weather and natural-disaster monitoring.

The latest evolution of CSIRO’s phased array technology will help Quasar’s ground station service to communicate with hundreds of satellites simultaneously.

CREDIT: CSIRO

Quasar will allow commercial and government entities to connect with satellites from anywhere in the world, in real time. This is made possible by the multiple antenna beams of its phased array, which were originally developed to give ASKAP its unprecedented field of view. “CSIRO’s phased array technology revolutionised radio astronomy by enabling ASKAP to see enormous portions of the sky at once – about 30 times the area that conventional telescopes could see,” said Dr Ilana Feain, a CSIRO commercialisation specialist and one of the founding directors of Quasar.

Launched in May 2021, Quasar is backed by AUS$12m in funding, technology and industry expertise from CSIRO as well as other government bodies and private companies. The satellite ground communications market is estimated to be worth US$130bn.

Once the technology is adapted to send – as well as receive – signals, it will help meet the booming demand for satellite ground stations. Quasar is selling ground-station functionality ‘as a service’ similar to the Software as a Service (SaaS) model that is used for cloud computing.

Quasar continues a proud history of Australian innovation. Famously, CSIRO scientists also invented fast WiFi, another commercialised technology originally developed for radio astronomy use. These examples demonstrate the potential for technologies developed for the SKA to be translated into benefits for industry and society.

By the Australian SKA Office