Space Connect Podcast

Franco-American space transportation company Hstar Space is building a heavy-class rocket to blast off global infrastructure into orbit. Its upcoming launch vehicle is designed to carry up to 60 tonnes of payload.  Once complete, they hope to blast it off from spaceports around the world, including locally at the upcoming Space Centre Australia in far north Queensland.  In this special episode, the CEO of Hstar, Nick Orenstein, and the founder of Space Centre Australia, James Palmer, discuss their upcoming plans. 

This week, the Space Connect Podcast features a returning guest: Paul Hawkins, the founder of Crazy Might Work. His company is a leadership and innovation academy that brings lessons from frontiers like space to the workplace. More simply put, Hawkins and his team work with leaders and their teams to create and mobilise high-performing teams. Their re-imagination of NASA's successful 4-D program won the Australian Space Awards 2025 for Workplace Initiative of the Year. Host Adam Thorn and Hawkins discuss this and what exactly makes great leadership and high-performing teams.

Last month, Space Connect held its Australian Space Summit and Exhibition, or AusSpace, in Sydney.  The highlight of the event though was a panel where schoolchildren were given the chance to interview three astronauts. We've got the audio so you can listen in. The panel included Paul Scully-Power, Australia's first-ever astronaut, who went to space in 1984; Eric Philips, who only blasted off to space on a private SpaceX mission in April; and Katherine Bennell-Pegg, the first astronaut to formally qualify under the Australian flag. 

The Australian Space Summit & Exhibition was the biggest event of the year for our local industry. In this special episode recorded at the event, Space Connect editor Adam Thorn and Defence Connect analyst Steve Kuper discuss the main takeaways. The pair discuss the importance of AUKUS to space, the impact of government cuts to the industry and why the sector is so integral to our national defence.

Last week, Space Centre Australia revealed it was set to work with NASA on an audacious proposal to launch satellites via military aircraft. The plan – similar to that pioneered by Virgin Orbit – has already begun testing at the US space agency's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia using a modified C-130J Super Hercules. In this episode of the Space Connect podcast, SCA's chief executive, James Palmer, discusses how his team plans to do it and if it could lead to a closer collaboration with the US space agency.

If you have been paying attention to the news for the past few weeks, you might have heard about a "city-destroying" asteroid – 2024 YR4 – spotted late last year that had the potential to impact Earth in 2032. While the chances of 2024 YR4 hitting us were once thought to be as high as 3 per cent, they have, fortunately, since been revised down to near zero – but with new asteroids and other objects being spotted all the time, our luck at avoiding the big ones may not hold forever. Fortunately, the International Asteroid Warning Network (IAWN), comprising astronomers and organisations around the world, is on the case, cataloguing and tracking potentially hazardous asteroids and near-Earth objects to keep the risk of being caught by surprise to a minimum. Professor Ed Kruzins of UNSW Canberra is one member of the IAWN and he joins the Space Connect Podcast to discuss how asteroids are tracked, what might happen on an impact – and what we could do to prevent one.

This week, ELO2 Consortium beat out rival AROSE to win the right to create Australia's upcoming lunar rover. The rover is designed to collect regolith, or moon soil, that will eventually be turned into oxygen to support a permanent NASA base. It's arguably the biggest and most exciting project Australia's space sector has ever been involved with, and will work in tandem with NASA's Artemis mission to return humans to the lunar surface. Here, host Adam Thorn interviews two of the key figures at ELO2 overseeing the project: Lunar Outpost's Joseph Kenrick and EPE Oceania's Ben Sorensen. 

Space Centre Australia plans to build a spaceport in far north Queensland that it hopes will become like an international airport for launch vehicles.  However, unlike its local rivals, it believes it can one day host larger rockets manufactured by companies such as SpaceX. In this episode, SCA's founder and CEO, James Palmer, joins host Adam Thorn to talk about the latest developments as well as the appointment of its new chairman, Scott Morrison. The pair also discuss the latest industry topics, including the high-profile cancelling of the JP 9102 tender with Lockheed Martin. 

In 1999, an archived speech was discovered that had been written for US President Richard Nixon 30 years before in case a disaster on the Apollo 11 mission left the astronauts with no hope of recovery. Thankfully, that speech never had to be given – but what if it had? What if some key component on the lunar lander had failed, stranding Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on the moon, to slowly run out of oxygen as the world watched in horror? It's a question asked by author David Dyer in his new novel, This Kingdom of Dust, which provides a fictionalised look at just such a scenario. In this Space Connect podcast, he talks to Jake Nelson about NASA's concerns with the Apollo program, how the world might have reacted, and whether the enthusiasm for space travel so prevalent in the 1960s can be recaptured.  

In October, Scott Morrison was surprisingly unveiled as the new chairman of Space Centre Australia, the planned spaceport in Far North Queensland. The move has the potential to hugely disrupt Australia''s launch sector, which already has four spaceports scattered around the country. Now, a few weeks later, the former prime minister joins Robert Dougherty in our studio in North Sydney. The pair discuss the new government's cuts to the space sector, whether the industry will recover, and how Australia can take advantage of its geographical advantages to become a leader in launch.

From 29 September to 25 November, Earth will have a new temporary 'mini moon'. Named 2024 PT5, the object is actually an asteroid from the Arjuna asteroid group that will be captured by Earth's gravity for 57 days. It's so small and faint that it won't be visible to the eye or even with small telescopes, but it will be visible to larger telescopes. Astrophysicist Dr Laura Driessen, from the University of Sydney, talks through the history of mini moons and what the rare discovery means. 

In 2013, Swedish researchers discovered that beetles used the Milky Way to navigate at night, realising its fixed point in the sky could help them roll dung balls in a straight line. Now, a decade later, researchers at the University of South Australia (UniSA) are using that breakthrough as inspiration for a new project aimed at improving navigation for satellites. They have developed a computer vision system that reliably measures the orientation of the Milky Way, which could one day lead to a back-up method of stabilising satellites in low light. Here, Professor Javaan Chahl, who oversaw the initiative, discusses how the plan works. 

The iLAuNCH trailblazer is a partnership between academic institutions and more than 20 industry partners that aims to accelerate the development of the space manufacturing sector. This week, we're joined by Dr Joni Sytsma, the chief technology officer overseeing iLAuNCH at the University of Southern Queensland.  Sytsma trained at the University of Florida over 20 years ago and has had an amazing career as an aerospace engineer, with spells working at high-profile companies such as Gilmour Space Technologies and Department 13. Here, Sytsma discusses the best recent iLAuNCH projects, including a Fitbit-style wearable for astronauts and a plan to film blast-offs in Australia. 

A recent study by RMIT has suggested that the isolated environment of the International Space Station, rather than just a lack of gravity, is behind reports from astronauts that food tastes blander in space. It's an important development because if we're going to send humans to Mars and beyond, we'll have to consider their diet and psychology. On this episode, Dr Julia Low, an RMIT senior lecturer, talks to host Adam Thorn about the study's results. The pair discuss how they replicated the ISS on Earth, how its findings can be used to tailor meals for astronauts, and where the research goes next.

As commercial space missions increase, it is important to be able to simulate space conditions to ensure equipment is up to the task. Components need to withstand not only a high vacuum but also extreme temperatures, high radiation, and other harsh conditions not found on Earth. Ezzi Vision has supplied scientific vacuum and thin film technology to sectors, including the space industry, for more than 18 years. Jake Nelson spoke to Dr Adil Adamjee, CEO and managing director of Ezzi Vision, on how and why space simulation on Earth is done.

Last year, LeoLabs Australia opened its pioneering West Australian Space Radar (WASR) near Collie in the southwest. When it began operating, the site could already track tens of thousands of satellites in low-Earth orbit, but it has since been upgraded to improve its coverage further. In this episode, the company's president and managing director, Terry van Haren, talks about WASR's progress and how it works with the company's network of global radars.

The Space Shuttle Challenger disaster and other failed missions led NASA to rethink how it fostered leadership and culture. Now, NSW-based Crazy Might Work is using an ultra-modern version of the same program, based on the current space program, to share those learnings with other organisations and leadership teams. In this special episode recorded at the Australian Space Summit & Exhibition, Paul Hawkins, the company's chief combobulator, talks to host Adam Thorn about the firm's origins in Antarctica, whether leaders are born or made and how NASA became the Best Place to Work in federal government for the eleventh year in a row.

This week, the third annual Australian Space Summit & Exhibition took place at the ICC in Sydney. Now a two-day event, headliners included senior figures from the US Space Force, Virgin Galactic, and the new head of Australia's Space Command. In this special episode, recorded during the event, Space Connect's Adam Thorn and Defence Connect's Liam Garman and Stephen Kuper discuss the key takeaways from the summit. 

Space Connect has just announced that the Under Secretary of the US Air Force, Kristyn E. Jones, will headline this month's Australian Space Summit and Exhibition. Jones is one of the most senior figures involved in the US Space Force and oversees the entire US Air Force's annual budget of more than $205 billion. As part of her role, she also directs the US Air Force's strategy and policy development, weapons acquisition and technology investments while being the principal adviser to the Secretary of the Air Force, Frank Kendall. In this episode, Defence Connect's senior analyst, Stephen Kuper, chats about the significance of her appearance, and what local industry can learn at the event.

This month, Space Connect reported how researchers operating the Australia Telescope Compact Array (ATCA) in NSW used an athletics-style method to measure the speed of neutron star jets. The international team timed the phenomenon like a "100-metre sprinter" to record that it travelled at 114,000 kilometres per second – one-third the speed of light. In this episode, Tom Russell, who led the research, talks through the mysterious jets and how they developed a new way to track them. Plus, he discusses why the ATCA telescope is still such a pioneering machine and what the future of the research holds.