Canadian space company ThothX will invest more than $10 million into a historic NASA dish located in Carnarvon, Western Australia.
The 30-metre-wide Overseas Telecommunications Commission (OTC) dish was decommissioned in 1987 after providing communications support to NASA missions up to 1975.
After its decommission, the dish was transformed into a tourist attraction and registered heritage site, forming part of the Carnarvon Space and Technology Museum.
ThothX has entered into a 20-year renewable lease with Carnarvon to refurbish, operate and maintain the OTC dish, allowing it to become a working piece of infrastructure used to track satellites and spacecraft in geostationary orbit, located at an altitude of about 35,000km around Earth.
At present, there are about 2,000 satellites in geostationary orbit with a combined value of about $2 trillion. The satellites are mainly used for communications and defence.
ThothX operates the Algonquin Radio Observatory in Canada, but requires facilities in Europe and Australia to track all satellites in geostationary orbit.
The OTC dish could also be used to track threats in orbit to astronauts in future lunar missions and communicate with operations on the moon.
ThothX intends to have the dish operational by 2024.
Western Australia already hosts low orbit space tracking facilities for numerous international space agencies and businesses. ThothX’s investment in the OCT satellite dish will provide additional capability in a new orbit.
The investment is a positive outcome for the region of Carnarvon and supports the growth of WA’s fast-developing space industry.
