Key points

• The Canberra Deep Space Communication Complex will play a key role in the first crewed lunar mission in over 50 years.
• The complex will coordinate correspondence and data transfer between the Artemis II crew and NASA’s headquarters in Houston, Texas.
• Artemis II aims to orbit the moon and will likely launch in late 2024 or in 2025.
• The complex assisted the historic Apollo missions between 1968 and 1972 and is involved in scores of robotic space missions.

A squad of Australian scientists and engineers will be the first to establish contact with the astronauts undertaking the most significant space mission of this century once the Orion space capsule blasts off from Florida and begins Artemis II, the first crewed lunar mission since 1972.

The Canberra Deep Space Communication Complex will serve as a crucial conduit for correspondence and data transfer between the Artemis mission’s four astronauts – who were named on Tuesday – and NASA’s mission control centre in Houston, Texas.

“It’s been 50 years since we supported human spaceflight beyond earth. It’s great to be back and part of that again,” the complex’s spokesman Glen Nagle said.

“We supported the original Apollo missions. It’s a new generation now: the Artemis generation.”

The Canberra complex, a NASA facility run by the CSIRO, is one of three stations that make up the agency’s deep space network (the other stations are in Madrid, Spain, and Goldstone, California) and it provides two-way radio contact for spacecraft roaming the solar system.

It’s the only station that has retained communication with the Voyager 2 spacecraft, now 20 billion kilometres from Earth and deep into interstellar space.

“Think of the deep space network as being the telephone exchange for the universe,” said Nagle.

The four astronauts on Artemis II include the first woman, engineer Christina Koch, and the first person of colour, African American naval aviator Victor Glover, to embark on a lunar mission.

In 2024 or ’25 they’ll fly the Orion capsule spacecraft around the moon in a crucial 10-day test-run ahead of an actual moon landing.

As well as transmitting critical comms and data, the Canberra complex is also an emotional lifeline for the humans who, once launched, will become the most isolated souls in the solar system.

“Big dish” antennas at the Canberra Deep Space Communication Complex.Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

“We’re the connection to their families,” Nagle said. “Astronauts can send emails and do video chats. That human connection is so important – they’re heading off to the depths of space, and we need to make sure that they always have that connection to us.”

The complex’s 85 staff are preparing for takeoff just as hard as the astronauts, Nagle said, and are drilling for communication failures, spacecraft faults and course re-alignments if a thruster malfunctions.

Nagle recalled the 1970 explosion of an oxygen tank on Apollo 13 halfway between Earth and the moon. Communication went down due to two radio signals cancelling each other out on the spacecraft.

“It took the team here in Canberra to separate those signals and reestablish communication, which was essential,” Nagle said.

Operations team leader Richard Stephenson at the Operations Control Centre at the Canberra Deep Space Communication Complex.Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

NASA chief Bill Nelson visited Australia a fortnight ago, when Minister for Industry and Science Ed Husic awarded $4 million in grants to two consortiums, under the Australian Space Agency’s Trailblazer program, to begin work on a locally designed semi-autonomous rover.

The program aims to have an Australian-built rover collect lunar soil and scour it for water by 2026.

“Australia needs to be an active participant and not a bystander in humanity’s return to the moon,” the head of the Australian Space Agency, Enrico Palermo, said.

“The Trailblazer program will help us secure our seat in future international space missions to the moon and beyond.”

Nagle said the Canberra team is looking forward to playing a part in returning humankind to the moon. The complex still maintains the antenna that beamed Neil Armstrong’s historic lunar steps around the world.

“If Artemis II is successful, then Artemis III in 2025-26 will be the next mission to go with a crew, but this time to land boots on the surface of another world,” Nagle said.

“I’m sure there will be another generation as affixed as I was as an eight-year-old, watching Neil Armstrong walk on the moon.”

Clarification: In an earlier version the story mentioned the Australian Science Agency. It is the Australian Space Agency.

Liam Mannix’s Examine newsletter explains and analyses science with a rigorous focus on the evidence. Sign up to get it each week.

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