Richard Easther: Auckland University physics professor on the Government wanting to launch a fully NZ-controlled satellite

The Government wants to launch the first satellite controlled by New Zealand.

Currently we rely on satellites from "friendly countries" - such as the US and the UK.

Options are now with MBIE – but what would a sovereign satellite mean for us?

Auckland University physics professor Richard Easther joined Mike Hosking.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
It looks like we could get into the satellite business.

(00:02):
Government wants to launch one that we can control. Currently
we rely on the Brits and the Americans. People like that.
The Auckland University physics professor Richard Easter's where's Richard? Morning?

Speaker 2 (00:11):
Good morning?

Speaker 1 (00:12):
Is this a thing? I mean, this is something countries
aspire to do. It's what you want to do? It is?

Speaker 2 (00:17):
I mean, and the government has a space strategy and
number one in the space strategy is to develop our
sovereign space capabilities for the National Space Mission.

Speaker 1 (00:26):
Okay, cool? So how would we do that? How many
satellites would we need just the one or a whole bunch?

Speaker 2 (00:32):
That depends. I mean if many cases you might want
to work up to something with a couple of trial satellites,
and other cases you may actually need more than one
because you know, the lowest all but a given satellite
is only over New Zealand then maybe twenty minutes a day,
and so you might want to have multiple coverage, do we?

Speaker 1 (00:53):
I mean, as Peter Beck changing the game and Elon's
changing the game, and to get these things up there,
it's so much cheaper. Therefore, we're in the we're in place.

Speaker 2 (01:01):
I think it's more than in the case of New Zealand,
and you know, completely unexpectedly, New Zealand is a huge
player in the space industry as a result of Rocket Labs,
and that's not something that you would have necessarily guessed
fifteen years ago. You know, there's one hundred companies trying
to do what rocket Lab does and it's only rocket
Lab that's doing it.

Speaker 1 (01:19):
Okay, do we lose anything by piggybacking with the British
or the Americans?

Speaker 2 (01:24):
You lose, in particular the ability to have sovereign control
of so you know where the data is coming from
and nobody else can turn it off. It may not
be so much a government that we're piggybacking with in
those cases. In the cases of a lot of this
observation data that's increasingly they're provided by private firms and
so you may hope to be able to do it

(01:45):
cheaper than them. On the other hand, if you do that,
then obviously you know you're trying to compete with the
one off against somebody who's doing company in Folk.

Speaker 1 (01:53):
Okay, if we pulled the trigger this afternoon just to
ruin to this, could how quickly are we up in
business and up and running any thing is to decide.

Speaker 2 (02:01):
What to do, and so I think I think the
real question is whether the scope of the questions that
have been asked about her ambitious enough. There's a lot
of countries that want to do this, and a lot
of times what they produce is is what's sometimes known
in the trade as a participation troper. You know, we
put our thing up there, we put ourselves on the
back for it, but we haven't actually done anything novel

(02:22):
on you. And you know, given how given New Zealands
you meique position in the space industry worldwide, I would say,
you know that you'd want to be providing the minister
with something that you know. She goes and tell the
other space houses that you know that they're excited and
they say, wow, it's amazing you guys are doing that,
And I think that would be the test stout. And
I don't know that that question is thing asked yet.

Speaker 1 (02:43):
Good point, okay, Richard, appreciate your expertise as always, Richard
Easter or can University physics professor. And I assume that
Peter Beck's doing it for us and those sort of
people that probably takes the Air Force and the Navy
out of play. Therefore, when we go and launch the satellite,
it doesn't I don't know, to run into something or
go into well, you mean actually have to take it
off automatic pilot or something like that. For more from

(03:04):
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Speaker 2 (03:07):
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