Space Propulsion System Entrepreneurship

[Music plays and an image appears of the Earth against a night sky, and inset hexagonal images appear showing a female working on a computer, a satellite dish, and a female working in a Space lab, and text appears: Space Careers Wayfinder]

[Image changes to show a view of a satellite moving over the surface of the Earth]

[Image changes to show Dr Patrick Neumann in the Australian Space Discovery Centre talking to the camera, and text appears: Dr Patrick Neumann, Chief Scientist /Co-Founder, Neumann Space]

Dr Patrick Neumann: G’day. I’m Dr Patrick Neumann, but please call me Paddy. It makes me feel weird when people call me Patrick. I’m the Chief Scientist and Co-Founder of Neumann Space.

[Image changes to show a spacecraft moving around the Earth]

We’re developing a new type of spacecraft propulsion system based on my research.

[Image changes to show a model of the Vacuum Arc Technology, and text appears: Vacuum Arc Technology, The Vacuum Arc (or Cathodic Arc) technology inherits from the cathodic arc plasma deposition]

It’s a pulsed cathodic arc spacecraft propulsion system.

[Images move through to show a satellite orbiting Earth, and then a CubeSat satellite, and text appears: SpIRIT Mission, Space Industry, Responsive, Intelligent, Thermal Nano-Satellite]

A little tiny rocket thruster that will go onto, at this point, small spacecraft, the CubeSat scale side of the market.

[Image changes to show a diagram showing CubeSat sizes in actual size]

One CubeSat unit is a cube about ten centimetres on a side and about 1.2kg in mass.

[Image changes to show Patrick talking to the camera again]

There’s a lot of space craft in orbit that have reached the end of their useful life, or they’ve been fried by radiation, or something’s broken.

[Image changes to show a satellite rotating in space]

They basically become junk. They become debris.

[Image changes to show the Space Junk Tracker and the image shows a hand manipulating the world globe on the screen]

They become a hazard to navigation, and there’s very little regulation on this.

[Image changes to show a diagram of a spacecraft orbiting Earth and then the image changes to show a diagram of a satellite rotating, and then the image changes to show Patrick talking to the camera]

There’s a lot of proposals and a lot of ideas on what to do with space junk and the simplest of them all is to send up some spacecraft and grab hold of it and deorbit it, and that’s good enough for some applications, but it’s not going to work for everything and it’s very expensive.

[Image changes to show a screen scrolling through displaying upcoming launches, and then the image changes to show Patrick talking to the camera]

If you need to do one mission to take down one piece of junk, that’s going to add up very quickly.

[Images move through to show information about Metal Propellants, and then the image shows symbols for different metals]

Others such as what we’re currently working on, our propulsion system utilises solid conductive propellants. We can use pretty much any metal as our propellant.

[Image changes to show a close view of a rocket, and then the image changes to show Patrick talking to the camera, and then the image changes to show a satellite orbiting Earth]

We can use aluminium alloys like you make spacecraft out of. If you can recycle that, reprocess it into propellant that our propulsion system can use, the junk-hunting space craft can go on to take out other pieces of junk.

[Image changes to show Patrick talking to the camera]

Think of it like a self-refuelling rubbish truck, taking spacecraft out of hazardous orbits, making low-earth orbit safer for all users.

[Image changes to the Neumann Space website and the page scrolls through, and then the image changes to show Patrick talking to the camera]

Starting a business is actually fairly simple. All you’ve got to do is go onto the ASIC website, pay your fee, get your ABN and away you go. So, starting it’s dead easy. Keeping it going on the other hand, that’s the hard part.

[Image changes to show a close view of a satellite in orbit, and then the image changes to show Patrick talking to an older male and looking at a laptop together]

I’ve had to do several elevator pitches, anywhere from the T-shirt pitch of, “You’ve got five seconds, what have you got?”.

[Image changes to show Patrick talking to the camera, and then the image changes to show a close view of Patrick and the older male in conversation while looking at a laptop]

All the way out to you know, one minute, 90 second, five minutes. Mainly I’m listening to see what problem people are addressing.

[Image changes to show Patrick talking to the camera, and then the image changes to show Patrick talking to the older male again]

If it’s a problem I have and they can help me solve it, I’m interested in keeping them talking.

[Image changes to show Patrick talking to the camera]

You’ve got to tailor your pitch, got to tailor your presentation to match your audience.

[Images move through to show the outside of the Australian Space Discovery Centre, a hand placing a SIM card in a slot, and then a display of Flexible Solar Cells on a screen]

Creativity in the workplace is important, but it depends on what you’re doing.

[Image changes to show Patrick talking to the camera]

There’s a time and a place for it and working in a startup, it’s front and centre.

[Images move through to show various maps on one of the displays in the Space Discovery Centre, and then the image changes to show Patrick talking to the camera]

We have to creatively solve problems. We’re trying to do something no one’s ever done before, and this means we face issues no one’s ever faced before.

[Image changes to show a display of the Plasma Thruster model and the Phased Array Feed section and photos of two females appear on the display]

So, we’ve got to solve problems in a way that may be similar to what other people have done but may be entirely different as well.

[Images move through to show Patrick talking to the older male, Patrick talking to the camera, and a close view of a display]

So, while you need the creativity to solve those problems, once the problem’s been solved, you then have to restrain your creativity so that you follow a process that you know works.

[Image changes to show Patrick talking to the camera]

It’s finding that balance which is always the challenge.

[Image changes to show Patrick talking to the older male]

You know, we always come across something that stumps us.

[Image changes to show a close view of the propulsion technology display, and then the image changes to show Patrick talking to the camera]

It’s a big, wide, wonderful world, and you can never know everything. When this happens, not if, when, you need to be honest, you need to be humble, and you need to be strong enough to say, I don’t know, but I’m going to find out.

[Image changes to show a hand pressing a button on the propulsion technology display, and then the image changes to show a diagram of a helicon double layer plasma thruster]

Quite a lot of the careers in space in Australia require a fair amount of STEM skills.

[Image changes to show Patrick talking to the camera]

A lot of it is highly technical work.

[Image changes to show a male working on a computer, and then the image changes to show a female working on a computer]

So, if this is what you want to get into, learn to code now.

[Image changes to show Patrick talking to the camera, and then the image changes to show a diagram of 3D-printed hybrid rocket fuel, and then the image changes to show Patrick talking to the camera]

Pay attention in maths, as well as physics and/or chemistry, because those basic skills will serve as your entry point into the highly technical studies you will need to do, if you want to be one of the technical workers in space.

[Images move through of different people working on computers, and then the camera pans up to show the diagrams on the screens they are working on]

You also need to be able to pick up the soft skills, the communication skills, the report writing, technical presentation skills.

[Image changes to show Patrick talking to the camera, and then the image changes to show a female giving a presentation to an audience]

You also have the communications people who need to be excellent public speakers, and they’re often people from the humanities subjects, who like a lot of people, reckon space is awesome, and so they’ve got good at being communicators, public speakers, making sure that they’re getting things right enough to be explaining it to a general audience.

[Image changes to show Patrick talking to the camera]

Enjoying your work is important. Having down time is also important. Having time just to create, having time just to make, having time to do the things that you want to do because they make you happy, all of these are important.

[Images move through of an aerial view of old buildings in a city, a male working in a forge, a male polishing a sword, and then a close view of the sword being polished]

One of the things I do, I am fascinated by history. I like to study it and I like to see and figure out how people did various things at various times and then give that a go myself.

[Image changes to show a close view of a hand pushing a needle through leatherwork, and then the image changes to show Patrick talking to the camera]

So, as part of this, I sew, I cook, I brew, I do calligraphy, illumination, embroidery, all kinds of things.

[Image changes to show a satellite dish rotating, and then the image changes to show Patrick talking to the camera]

I’m excited that the Australian space industry is coming together in the way that we said it would when we were campaigning for there to be an Australian space agency.

[Image changes to show a satellite surrounded by logos of the different companies who contributed to it, and then the image changes to show Patrick talking to the camera]

All the various small companies coming together and working together in the different segments you need to have operating in order to have a space mission go so that we can provide all of the capabilities within Australia for Australian missions.

 

[Music plays and the image changes to show the CSIRO logo and text: CSIRO, Australia’s National Space Agency, Space Careers Wayfinder 2022 except where otherwise indicated, The Space Careers Wayfinder materials may be used, reproduced, communicated and adapted free of charge for non-commercial educational purposes provided all acknowledgements associated with the material are retained, Space Careers Wayfinder is a collaboration between the CSIRO and ANU]

 

[Image changes to show Australian National University logo]