$1.18bn plan to advance ANZ satellite positioning

Businesses, communities, farmers and first responders across Australia and New Zealand will soon enjoy greater satellite positioning accuracy, thanks to the award of a $1.18 billion, 19-year contract to bring the Southern Positioning Augmentation Network (SouthPAN) to life.

The new service is set to improve positioning from current services, which provide accuracy of between 5 and 10 m, to as little as 10 cm. This 50-fold increase in accuracy should boost economic productivity, serving as the Southern Hemisphere’s first satellite navigation augmentation service.

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. Minister for Resources and Northern Australia Madeleine King said it is a major commitment between the Australian and New Zealand governments to provide essential satellite positioning services across Australasia.

“SouthPAN will provide instant, accurate and reliable positioning to users across all of Australia and New Zealand’s land and maritime zones without the need for a mobile phone signal or internet,” King said.

“We’ve already demonstrated that industry and the community can use this for groundbreaking applications that increase safety, improve productivity and drive innovation across a broad range of industries.”

King said the new network will enable mining companies to install more accurate collision avoidance systems on automated mining haul trucks or allow visually impaired citizens to navigate cities with pinpoint assistive technologies. Another benefit will be to allow light aircraft to land more safely in remote rural areas in all weather conditions, bringing benefits for essential services such as The Royal Flying Doctor Service and the communities they serve.

SouthPAN is estimated to generate over $6 billion in benefits to the Australian economy over the next 30 years. Indeed, New Zealand Minister for Land Information Damien O’Connor said the joint Australia–New Zealand initiative will be a game changer for the economies of both nations.

“SouthPAN provides crucial digital infrastructure for the future and we expect the actual benefits to be greater over the project’s lifespan,” O’Connor said. “Beyond the horizon, new products on the market will use this infrastructure to create value in new ways for businesses and consumers.

“This technology was originally developed to support aviation safety, but as technology has advanced, the applications have expanded. It now has potential uses as varied as enabling accurate vehicle guidance for efficiencies in agriculture and horticulture management, tracking maritime shipments and enabling navigation for drones and other unmanned vehicles.”

Geoscience Australia signed the contract with Lockheed Martin Australia last week to provide the service. King said the system will deliver the first services in the coming weeks, with the aim of being fully operational across the two countries with safety-of-life certification from 2028.

“The SouthPAN project team will work with Lockheed Martin Australia to establish a network of global navigation satellite system reference stations, a corrections processing facility and satellite uplink facilities that will enable accurate and reliable positioning signals to be transmitted from satellites to users,” she said.

“We are working hard to ensure users can access the SouthPAN service as soon as possible. The coming weeks will see the release of our first precise, open-access positioning services.”

O’Connor added that SouthPAN reflects both governments’ shared commitment to growing space capability.

“By providing these capabilities to Australian and New Zealand businesses, we can harness science and technology to help them improve productivity, sustainability, and boost innovation,” he said.

Image caption: Satellite dishes located in Uralla, just outside Armidale.