Satellite station planned for N.Z.

Press, 24 September 1987, Page 25

Satellite station planned for N.Z.

PA Wellington Contracts are expected to be signed within the next few weeks for a $lO million satellite receiving station at Otaki, says the managing director of Resource Satellite Communication Services Mr Brian Hight The remote sensing station will allow New Zealand to receive satellite information about its land and sea resources. But planning permission for the venture from the Horowhenua County Council has yet to be received, the “Levin Chronicle” reported. The Horowhenua County planning office said it had not given official permission for the erection of the satellite dish. The county town-plan-ning officer, Mr Campbell Thompson, said the county had been approached in January for planning approval to erect a satellite dish and a small servicing building nearby. "Sihce that time we informed the company and

the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research that a special planning application had to be obtained similar to the ones granted to Radio Horowhenua and Radio Print Disabled for their aerial,” he said. The proposed site is believed to be at the northern end of Te Horo beach. The station is expected to receive from both Landsat and the French S.P.O.T. satellites data on an area covering New Zealand, the Tasman Sea, the east coast of Australia, Fiji, Tonga, Vanuatu, thousands of kilometres of the Pacific Ocean, and extending almost to Antarctica. The announcement came after Mr Hight and about 50 representatives of Government departments and private sector interests had attended an information briefing in Wellington given by three men from a company promoting the use of the American Landast system. The E.O.S.A.T. (Earth Observation Satellite)

team was headed by the company president, Mr Chuck Williams, who expected about 24 stations would be operating around the world by 1989, making use of the existing Landsat 4 and 5 satellites, and the planned 6 and 7 satellites. Mr Hight said negotiations with the American and French teams were in their final stages, with more negotiations involving Canadian interests also nearing an end. The negotiations, which had taken longer than expected, involved the tender for constructing the satellite receiving station, the site for the station, access to the satellites’ data, and funding for the venture. Mr Hight said the $lO million funding arrangement was built into the business deal for constructing the receiving station. Potential departmental customers for the receiving station’s data included the Ministry of Works and Development, the D.5.1.R., Defence, Survey and

Land, Information, Conservation, and Forestry, he said. Most interest appeared to be in the station’s mapping potential, and derivatives from mapping data. The system could also be used to assess fish stocks, land use, crop yields, geology,. tidal flows, erosion, shipping movements, volcanic activity, earthquake effects and town planning. The E.O.S.A.T. company is a joint venture between the Hughes Aircraft Company and RCA Corporation (subsidiaries of General Motors and General Electric respectively). It works under contract to the United States Government to promote the use of its Landsat satellites, which transmit computerised data about the Earth’s resources to 15 land-based remote sensing stations around the world. The Landsat system has. been used to assess the size of the Soviet and United States grain harvests, and can be used to observe military activity.