Premier Steven Marshall pushes for Adelaide to become national space agency headquarters

The SA Premier wants Adelaide to become the Houston-like mission control of the nation’s space agency ahead of an announcement as soon as next week.

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Premier Steven Marshall is pushing for Adelaide to become the Houston-like mission control of the nation’s space agency ahead of an announcement as soon as next week.

In an interview with The Advertiser, Mr Marshall talked up the state’s extensive sales pitch, spearheaded by a purpose-built centre for more than 100 space industry experts at Lot 14, the old Royal Adelaide Hospital site.

This indicates the Premier is confident of beating other states in the race for both an industry node and the space agency headquarters, which he has said could be up and running within six months.

“We also want the operation centre. We want mission control. We want to be Houston,” Mr Marshall said.

A Federal Government decision is expected by Christmas but could be revealed at the South Australia Space Forum in Adelaide on Wednesday or the Council of Australian Governments meeting, also in Adelaide, on December 12.

“South Australia has put in a very compelling and competitive bid, not only for a significant node in South Australia, but in fact, to bring the headquarters to South Australia,” Mr Marshall said.

“Now this is a big ask. You have every other premier and government around Australia bidding for it. But the reality is, I’m genuinely 100% convinced that we have got the best capability to deliver on the federal government and the nation’s ambition in terms of a space agency.”

Adelaide's own Astronaut Andy Thomas calling for a Space HQ in SA with Premiere Steven Marshall at Adelaide University's 3D printing lab. Picture: Simon Cross

SA seeks to accommodate branches of key federal agencies, such as CSIRO, Defence Science and Technology Group and Geoscience Australia, at the Lot 14 facility.

Mr Marshall in July hosted new National Space Agency chief Dr Megan Clark, as she toured the nation to work out how the agency should be set up, and showed her the Lot 14 site. He acknowledged many people were advocating for Canberra to be the agency’s headquarters, including federal Labor, but argued to maximise the federal investment it needed to be co-located with industry.

“I don’t think there is one other thing I could have done, quite frankly. I’ve offered to mow the lawns and wash the cars of every single person who has got any component of the decision making of this important decision,” the Premier said.

He conceded a national perception that SA had already benefited from significant federal spending, particularly the $90 billion naval shipbuilding program centred on Adelaide.

“So we have had a huge amount, but I don’t think that should be used as an argument against South Australia,” Mr Marshall said.

“I think that should be an argument used for South Australia, because we have done a very good job with the federal government defence spending in South Australia and much of the investors in the defence sector are the same people that are investing in the space sector.

“And we’ve had very, very strong support from those companies flying over to Canberra arguing and advocating for the space agency to come to South Australia.”

The Premier, who acknowledged bipartisan support from Labor leader Peter Malinauskas and backing from Adelaide astronaut Andy Thomas, said the space agency was “not about landing somebody on Mars” but was about observation and data collection, then using that to drive productivity improvements.

“So, you can have a farmer who is going to get a big advantage from the space industry because there will be observation, multiple observations per day, it can monitor what crops are looking like so that they can then minimise inputs maximise yields,” the Premier said.