SPACE is sometimes referred to as "the last frontier", but the vacuum above our planet home is an increasingly crowded environment, with almost 3400 active satellites in orbit, and literally hundreds of thousands of pieces of "space junk" - all of them originally launched from Earth.
The United States might own more than half of the world's active satellites, but the emergence of other nations with space capabilities - and the importance of satellite technology for everything from phone calls to national defence - provides a pressing rationale for the US and its allies, including us, to know as much as we possibly can about the goings-on above us.
That's the rationale behind the announcement today by the Aussie Space Radar Project of a bid for federal assistance in building a radar manufacturing facility in the Hunter.
LeoLabs Australia (backed by US parent LeoLabs Inc) and local partners including the Hunter's Ampcontrol, would build the radar arrays for use in a global network of facilities, including two new installations in northern Australia.
As well as its obvious intelligence and military uses, the LeoLabs technology is also aimed at the private sector, which is increasingly involved in the commercialisation of space.
Down here on the ground, the plan to build high-tech radar assemblies in this region represents the sort of project that advocacy group Defence Hunter has been searching for to kick start the "space" side of this region's aerospace industry.
LeoLabs and its partners say they have $160 million to put into the project, and are seeking $80 million from a $1.3 billion federal funding scheme known as the Modern Manufacturing Initiative.
Some might question the call on the public purse, but from the government's perspective, the twin pressures of COVID and deteriorating relations with China have led the West to reappraise its reliance on "global supply chains".
This can only be good news for the Hunter's industrial base.
As Prime Minister Scott Morrison saw at Ampcontrol on Monday, this firm - and many others in our region - are capable of the highest standards of innovation and manufacture.
This bid, if successful, would give the region a new string to its economic bow and earn it a role in Australia's effort to become "a space nation".
