Lilla Creek station on SA/NT border soon to get NBN after satellite launch

SOUTH Australia’s most geographically isolated students will soon get an internet service that’s out of this world when the National Broadband Network launches the first of two satellites.

Satellite competition winner Bailey Brooks on her cattle station at Lilla Creek, 400km south of Alice Springs

SOUTH Australia’s most geographically isolated students will soon get an internet service that’s out of this world when the National Broadband Network launches the first of two satellites.

On Friday, six-year-old Bailey from Lilla Creek station, on the SA/NT border, was named the national winner of a competition to decorate the nose of the rocket launching the satellite.

As part of her prize, Bailey and her School of the Air classmates also got to name the satellite. “Sky Muster” will round up and connect Australians, like farmers round up cattle.

Describing her winning artwork, Bailey said: “It is about me, happy at my place in the middle of Australia with all the pretty stars. The satellite dish is for getting the internet. We use the internet for school and doing lessons.”

Artwork by SA finalist Haley Michos from Linden Park Primary School.

Farming families and other remote Australians can look forward to a “much better” service in future with faster internet speeds, NBN space systems architect Julia Dickinson said.

“(Bailey) will have easy access to the internet for homework. The School of the Air will go through NBN satellites,” she said.

An artist's impression of the two NBN satellites in orbit.

SA finalist Haley, 6, from Beaumont, drew the rocket and satellite reaching out to smiling faces, with the slogan “Make Australia Happy”.

See the winning entries at nbnco.com.au/stars

Originally published as Lilla Creek station on SA/NT border soon to get NBN after satellite launch