CANBERRA, Aug. 23 (Xinhua) -- The Australian Space Agency (ASA) has signed an agreement with its European counterpart to collaborate on future missions.
The ASA and European Space Agency (ESA) signed a joint statement of intent to explore deeper cooperation and identify projects in a range of areas including deep space, communications, navigation, remote asset management, data analytics and mission support, according to the official media release on Friday.
"It shows just how much momentum and excitement has been developed since the Coalition Government established the Australian Space Agency last year," Karen Andrews, the minister for Industry, Science and Technology said.
"Having the ASA to pursue these opportunities will play a big part in us reaching our goal of tripling the size of our space sector to 12 billion Australian dollars (8.1 billion U.S. dollars) and up to an extra 20,000 jobs by 2030," she added.
Established in 2018, the ASA is headquartered in Adelaide, the capital of South Australia.
Megan Clark, the head of the ASA, said that Australia can offer "world-leading expertise in remote operations that can be applied in space."
"We are delighted to start working with the European Space Agency to open up opportunities for our industry and researchers to participate in joint missions," she said.
