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https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2026/jul/23/australia-emergency-services-satellites-down>
"Australia’s emergency services and military personnel are being trained to
read paper maps, navigate without GPS support and sail by the stars in case
something knocks out the nation’s space capabilities.
A panel at the 19th Australian Space Forum in Adelaide on Wednesday was asked
to consider what would happen “if we suddenly lost access to critical space
infrastructure – no satellites, no GPS, no remote sensing, no secure
communications?”
The experts warned that Australians are unaware just how dependent they are on
space, and how vulnerable that connection is to enemy attacks and solar flares.
It’s “not science fiction”, the Optus satellite and space systems head, Nick
Leake, said.
He described ATM networks going down, emergency services losing their
situational awareness, aircraft navigation degrading, Defence losing secure
communications and remote communities being entirely cut off.
Aviation, freight and energy grid communications all rely on satellites and
financial systems could face “immediate cascading failure”, he said. People may
only realise their service is being delivered by a satellite when they lose it.
“Most Australians have no idea that space is part of their everyday life,”
Leake said.
“This isn’t science fiction. This is how critical satellite infrastructure is.
Australia has one of the highest per capita dependencies on satellite
infrastructure in the world.
“Right now, it’s largely unguarded.”"
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
