Australia and India advance resilient PNT

Skykraft, an Australian space technology company, has signed a participating project partner agreement to advance positioning, navigation and timing (PNT) systems in low-Earth orbit (LEO). This agreement, backed by an International Space Investment (ISI) India Projects grant from the Australian Government, marks a significant milestone in fostering space cooperation between Australia and India.

The project’s primary objective is to develop and demonstrate collaborative PNT systems. This includes establishing the viability of large-scale LEO constellations, addressing vulnerabilities in existing GNSS in denied environments, and exploring novel applications for PNT signals from LEO. Additionally, the project aims to create a comprehensive roadmap for collaborative LEO-PNT by implementing resilient, easily updatable constellations.

The project also seeks to enhance environmental monitoring capabilities through GNSS-reflectometry (GNSS-R) and radio occultation (GNSS-RO) technologies. This will improve understanding of Earth’s oceans, droughts, and floods while enhancing real-time space and terrestrial weather forecasting. It will explore emerging applications, such as tsunami monitoring and warning systems.