Australian space services firm Skykraft has announced the signing of a Participating Project Partner Agreement for a project called ‘Demonstration of Collaborative Position Navigation and Timing (PNT) in Low Earth Orbit (LEO)’ project.
The initiative is being supported by a $3.7 million grant from the Australian Government through its International Space Investment (ISI) India Projects program.
The primary aim of the project is the development of a next-generation collaborative PNT system. It will:
- Demonstrate the feasibility of large-scale constellations in LEO;
- Address the vulnerability of existing GNSS in denied environments;
- Investigate additional applications for PNT signals that can be exploited from LEO; and
- Through the demonstration of the resilience of large-scale constellations that can be easily updated and reconstituted, provide a roadmap to enable collaborative LEO-PNT.
According to Skykraft, another aim, ultimately, is to “enhance Australia’s space capabilities by demonstrating innovative solutions for GNSS-independent positioning and timing and showcase the benefits of a sovereign, resilient and assured PNT anywhere around the globe”.
A number of Australian and Indian institutions are involved in the project, including:
- RMIT University
- FrontierSI
- University of Newcastle
- University of New South Wales
- Curtin University
- Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore
- Indraprastha Institute of Information Technology Delhi (IIIT-Delhi)
In addition to its PNT aims, the project is also intended to improve environmental sensing through GNSS-reflectometry and radio occultation, which hopefully will lead to an improved understanding of the Earth’s oceans, droughts and floods.
“We are proud to have been selected to lead this joint Australia/India project which will provide a strong foundation for both countries to develop and launch a next generation PNT system,” said Michael Frater, CEO of Skykraft.
“We are looking forward to working with our partners from both nations to successfully deliver the project and encourage development of an operational independent PNT system.”
Skykraft isn’t the only one investigating LEO PNT. Earlier this year, European firm GMV was awarded a €784 million contract to develop key technologies for and demonstrate the benefits of LEO PNT.
