Western Australia will host a space technologies symposium that will bring together internationally recognised academic, industry and defence leaders to explore and shape the long-term vision for space technologies.

Four universities, Edith Cowan University, Curtin University, Murdoch University and the University of Western Australia, will co-host the Emerging and Disruptive Technology Assessment Symposium.

It will be hosted in partnership with Defence Science and Technology in Perth, on March 5-6, 2019.

The universities are among the leaders of Australian research into space technologies and were selected after a nationwide search for an academic partner.

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The symposium will explore emerging science and technology topics that will impact defence and national security over the next 20 years.

Australia is increasingly dependent on space-based systems to provide information and communication to support defence operations and national security.

Space capability is one of nine priorities identified for further development in the 2016 Defence White Paper.

The Australian government has also established the Australian Space Agency with funding of $41 million dollars to grow and transform our nation’s civil space industry, aimed at creating another 20,000 jobs and tripling the size of our space sector to $12 billion by 2030.

This investment is on top of more than $300 million in funding aimed to kick-start the local space industry and develop world-leading core satellite infrastructure.

Australia’s civil space industry has the potential to provide capability to support defence’s needs around space-based technologies.

Holding the symposium in Western Australia gives the four universities and local industry an opportunity to build on their space research and share expertise with other international and Australian researchers in attendance.