South Australian satellite IoT company Myriota is to provide IoT communications for the South Australian Government’s planned SASAT1 low earth orbit satellite.
South Australian premier, Steven Marshall announced SASAT1 on 20 January, describing it as $6.5m project that would provide information to improve state services such as, emergency services, the environment, water quality monitoring, mining and bushfire mitigation, boost IoT sensor exports and the state’s space industry.
He said the project was central to the South Australia Growth State: Space Sector Strategy, announced in November. “Applications include using the data and imagery we collect to solve real life problems, like helping farmers monitor water levels so they can more accurately predict future yields,” he said.
Myriota’s IoT connectivity — which uses small, credit card sized devices able to communicate directly with the satellite — will support the collection of data about multiple weather events, including rainfall and bushfires.
Myriota CEO and co-founder Dr Alex Grant, said SASAT1 would provide a great opportunity for understanding the state’s environment, while simultaneously creating opportunities for collaboration across South Australia’s growing space ecosystem, and improve the delivery of emergency services, and environmental monitoring.
The satellite will support data collection from ground based sensors and hyperspectral earth observation imaging. (Hyperspectral imaging detects electromagnetic signals continuously across a very wide range of visible and non-visible frequencies)
The SmartSat Co-operative Research Centre will lead the project, and the satellite will be designed and built by South Australian company Inovor Technologies, based on its Apogee satellite bus. It is scheduled for launch in 2022 and will have a three year life.
