LeoLabs has announced an expansion with the commissioning of the LeoLabs West Australian Space Radar (WASR), which the company says will add critical coverage of the Southern Hemisphere in the Indo-Pacific region.
"Australia is now host to a landmark in the world of space safety," LeoLabs CEO Dan Ceperley said Jan. 30 in a release from the company.
According to the release, LeoLabs provides space situational awareness and tracking services for satellites and other objects in Earth's orbit. With the expansion, LeoLabs has the capability to perform operations in the Indo-Pacific region, including India, Australia and Japan. LeoLabs' new sites in the Southern Hemisphere join existing sites in the U.S., Canada, Europe and Japan, covering the entire globe.
According to the company's website, the new radar sites will enable more accurate and timely tracking and analytics of objects in the low‑Earth orbit environment, such as debris and satellites, and "complete situational awareness of the space domain." Continuous, All-Weather Radar provides continuous and high-resolution coverage of the global space environment, and LeoLabs' network of radar sites is the largest of its kind.
"Australia is now host to a landmark in the world of space safety," Ceperley said in the release. "At LeoLabs, we are honored and humbled to be a part of the Australian space ecosystem and to have found so many supporters and partners in Australia."