Our partnership with Geoscience Australia to develop SouthPAN – a satellite-based positioning system – has marked construction starting on SouthPAN infrastructure with an event in Invercargill.
SouthPAN – which stands for Southern Positioning Augmentation Network – will significantly improve the accuracy, reliability and availability of positioning services across New Zealand and Australia.
Toitū Te Whenua Land Information NZ Kaihautū Jan Pierce, Australian Deputy High Commissioner Amy Guihot, Lockheed Martin Regional Director for Australia and New Zealand David Ball, Land Information Minister Damien O’Connor, Space Ops NZ Ltd CEO Robin McNeill, Te Runaka O Awarua Kaiwhakahaere Dean Whaanga, and Great South Chair Ian Collier.
Minister for Land Information Damien O’Connor and Australian Deputy High Commissioner Amy Guihot joined partners at Awarua, near Invercargill, to visit the site where New Zealand’s first SouthPAN satellite uplink centre will be based.
People from a range of sectors poised to benefit from SouthPAN’s world-class location-based technology attended the event to hear more about how it will operate. The technology will support such things as safer search and rescue, precision farming and safety on construction sites.
“Benefits will extend from things as simple as your Uber picking you up on the right side of the road, to the greater ability to monitor our protected species across the conservation estate,” the Minister said.
The Southland facility will form a vital component of SouthPAN, working in tandem with an existing centre in New South Wales and ensuring greater resilience of services if one station is impacted by a major weather event or fire.
The quantified benefits of SouthPAN to New Zealand are estimated to be $864m over 20 years. It’s expected this figure will grow as new technologies and innovations are developed to harness SouthPAN’s possibilities.
Space Ops NZ Ltd CEO Robin McNeill introduces Minister O’Connor and attendees to the Awarua Satellite Ground Station.
Two 11-metre antennas are being built by project contractor Lockheed Martin Australia at the SpaceOps NZ Satellite Ground Station in Awarua. They will link to a control centre in Invercargill, monitored by operators 24 hours a day.
Ultimately, SouthPAN will extend to more than 30 reference stations across New Zealand, Australia and further ashore including in Antarctica. It provides New Zealand and Australia a Satellite Based Augmentation System (SBAS) that will deliver the improved positioning and navigational technology already available in Europe, the US, Japan and India.
Read the Minister’s announcement.
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