Background
www.csst.co.nz
In May 2015 the New Zealand Government announced $25 million in funding over three years to support the
establishment of one or more new Regional Research Institutes (RRIs). The 2016 budget added an additional
$40 million to this initiative. Eligible regions exclude Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch. These RRIs would:
Be established and maintained as private, or private not-for-profit organisations with their own independent
governance arrangements,
Be required to perform relevant research in support of industry-led efforts to increase their research and
development intensity,
Congregate and develop their own ‘in-house’ expertise but would also be expected to facilitate and integrate
researchers from other New Zealand institutions, or from overseas, into their mix of activities,
Be expected to bring new research activity into the regions in addition to meeting industry demand in their
host region and possibly across several regions due to the nature of their industry engagement.
More information about the RRI initiative is available at:
http://www.mbie.govt.nz/info-services/sectors-industries/regions-cities/regional-research-institutes
Our goal is to establish the Centre for Space Science Technology (CSST) as an RRI. From the 24 proposals
originally submitted to the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE), CSST is one of three
shortlisted to develop a ‘Better Business Case’.
CSST will drive regional economic growth by enabling access to new and existing spacebased measurements and developing products and solutions tailored to New Zealand’s
regional industries.
CSST activities will be grouped into 3 work packages (WPs):
WP1 – establish an international satellite data brokerage (the "big data" WP – 20% of CSST’s resource)
CSST will establish a national satellite data handling facility that will ease access to satellite data for all
organisations in New Zealand. A web-based front end will allow easy access to the data and will facilitate subsetting of data, data formatting, and data delivery.
WP2 – exploit existing space-based imagery (the "software" WP – 50% of CSST’s resource)
1. Develop basic products to establish an income stream in the short-term e.g. obtain imagery from existing
space-based platforms and tailor it to meet the needs of niche markets in New Zealand.
2. In collaboration with allied industries, develop more sophisticated products that require a slightly longer
development time but lead to the creation of higher value products.
3. In collaboration with research partners, develop model-based approaches that can combine data from
space-based and non-space-based measurements to make optimal use of available measurements.
WP3 – develop and launch CubeSats to provide
dedicated imagery (the "hardware" WP – 30% of
CSST’s resource)
Provide tailored, New Zealand-dedicated products
and services in support of WP1 and WP2. A
programme of CubeSat design, build and launch will
be established to generate data tailored to meet the
needs of New Zealand regional industries. CubeSatderived data will be shared with international
partners. The CubeSats will be developed in
partnership with Rocket Lab.
New Zealand’s Best Interest
www.csst.co.nz
One of CSST’s guiding philosophies is “An institute in New Zealand’s best interests”. CSST endeavours to straddle
the divide between a purely commercial organisation and a government agency to make data products and
services as freely available as possible. CSST will operate in a way to drive down the costs typically associated
with the use of satellite data and thereby enable New Zealand’s regional industries to extend their own research
and development capabilities. In addition, CSST will support New Zealand’s science by creating and providing
data to researchers and in support of the New Zealand National Science Challenges.
Governance and Structure
CSST will be owned by a charitable trust (hereafter the CSST Trust) established for the benefit of regional
industries across New Zealand and to educate those industries on how best to exploit space-based
measurements in their own operations and R&D activities. We envisage there being 6 members on the Board of
Trustees.
The CSST Trust will appoint a Board of Directors to CSST (6 members) as well as an independent Chair. The
Board of Directors will appoint a Chief Executive Officer (CEO) to CSST. Any CSST profits will be returned to the
CSST Trust to be used for the benefit of regional industries. CSST will also include an unpaid internal advisory
board made up of key contacts from the parent organisations as well as national and international experts.
Interaction with Allied Research and Development Organisations
It is not CSST’s goal to create yet another competitor within the small New Zealand market. Rather, CSST seeks
to extend the research and development capabilities of organisations working in allied industries. CSST will
improve efficiency across these industries by centralising the processing of satellite data at the CSST satellite
data handling facility (WP1).
CSST will collaborate with allied research and development organisations to develop and deliver products and
services to target end users. Where there is currently no capability to provide a needed product or service to
users, CSST will work to fill this need. In this way, CSST will enable allied industries to build on their in-house
expertise to create value-added products and services to further meet the needs of regional industries.
Parent Organisations
AgResearch (http://www.agresearch.co.nz/) will provide strong links from CSST to the agricultural community in
New Zealand.
Bodeker Scientific (http://www.bodekerscientific.com) will provide expertise on space-based measurements,
retrieval algorithms, data product development, and national and international outreach.
Callaghan Innovation (https://www.callaghaninnovation.govt.nz) will be responsible for ensuring that CSST
activities connect to industry partners elsewhere in New Zealand and will assist with marketing of CSST
products.
MetOcean (http://www.metocean.co.nz) will provide expertise on data assimilation, GIS, product development,
product delivery, and national and international business development.
Rocket Lab (http://www.rocketlabusa.com) will collaborate with CSST personnel and partners to design, build,
and launch CubeSats dedicated to providing the imagery required to generate data products.
University of Canterbury (http://www.canterbury.ac.nz) will participate in designing and building the CubeSats,
and assist in defining and developing geospatial analysis tools.
www.csst.co.nz
University of Otago (http://www.otago.ac.nz) will provide expertise on GIS, the use of space-based
measurements in urban planning, geospatial mapping tools, and snow and ice mapping.
Wakescience (http://www.wakescience.nz) will provide implementation and analysis of algorithms, especially
for the agricultural and environmental data products.
Fields of Operation and CSST Centres
CSST will be a single organisation but will host offices in regions close to the parent organisations, from which key
skills and expertise will be contracted, and close to primary clients. The CSST Head Office will be in Alexandra.
Field
Centre
Description
Irrigation and Agriculture
Alexandra
and Lincoln
Near-real-time high spatial resolution (30 m x 30 m) maps of
soil moisture for all of New Zealand, in support of precision
irrigation, water stress, nitrogen-related stress, biomass,
precision agriculture, Normalized Difference Vegetation Index
maps, integrated with existing geospatial tools.
Snow and Ice
Alexandra
Operational mapping of snow cover, snow melt and snowpack
water resources for hydroelectricity generation, irrigation, skifields, recreation and avalanche hazard assessment.
Oceans and Atmosphere
New
Plymouth
Ocean state, ocean colour, fisheries, ship operations, exclusive
economic zone monitoring, space-based chlorophyll mapping.
Measurements of atmospheric state variables for improved
numerical weather prediction.
Regional Planning and
Hazard Management
Dunedin
Regional planning and civil engineering, flood/fire damage risk
assessments, near real time imagery in support of disaster
response.
Data Telemetry
Lincoln
Space-based fast data link between Scott Base and
Christchurch, potential other data telemetry services for
selected clients e.g. other stations in Antarctica. Data telemetry
from remote sensors.
Forestry
Lincoln
Imagery to assess forest health, yield, and to assist in
management decisions.
Example Satellite Orbits
Orbits for the CSST satellites will be selected to maximize coverage and to ensure the maximum number of
overpasses per day. The field of view of the instruments on-board the satellites will define the imagery swath
widths over New Zealand.
www.csst.co.nz
The orbits shown here are sun-synchronous orbits whereby the
satellite always passes over New Zealand at local noon. These
orbits will overpass many other countries providing CSST with an
opportunity to sell products derived from its own space-based
measurements to other countries.
Business Plan
CSST is in the process of developing a Better Business Case for MBIE. CSST will collaborate with allied industries
to develop a range of data products and services that capitalize on the availability of space-based
measurements and that will be delivered to users across New Zealand. At the base of the product pyramid (Tier
0; see left) are data sets from satellites and source/raw
data sets (e.g. weather forecasts, in situ probes, dronebased measurements). CSST will then work with allied
industries to build on these Tier 0 data sets to
produce higher tier data products that progress
from data to information and then to knowledge
to support regional industries. Identified gaps in
the product pyramid (grey boxes) will trigger
the CSST CubeSat programme to design,
build, launch and operate bespoke
satellites to fill that need. Once
operational, data from these satellites
will unlock higher tier data products
to better meet the needs of
regional industries. The CSST
business plan is being
developed to target the
‘building a more
productive and
competitive economy’
priority described in
the 2015/16 MBIE
business growth
agenda.
For more information contact Greg Bodeker
42 Russell Street, Alexandra, 9320, New Zealand
Phone: 03-4488118 Email: greg@csst.co.nz