The X-band tracker, known as the TeraScan SX-EOS system, is a satellite information receiving station built by the SeaSpace Corporation, San Diego, USA.

Contained within a large 3.6m x 4.2m dome, it is one of only three such trackers to be installed in Australia - the others are in Hobart and Alice Springs.

Murdoch Professor of Environmental Science, Tom Lyons, said the new satellite receiver would significantly improve our vision from space.

“The Murdoch-installed system receives data from the new generation of polar orbiters covering WA and the Southern and Indian Oceans,” said Professor Lyons.

“Among other things, it will significantly increase the accuracy of weather forecasting for WA’s many land and ocean-based activities and give us better information about global environmental changes affecting our climate, including forests, coral reefs, agriculture and the environment.”

He said the tracker could receive data at 10 to 100 mega bits per second - the same rate transmitted by the next generation of global environmental satellites.

“Present ‘L-band’ stations only receive data from satellite broadcasting at less than one mega bit per second, so the new X-band receiver will give scientists local access to a whole new generation of satellites,” said Professor Lyons.

The X-band tracker will complement the existing WASTAC, L-Band Antennae installed at Curtin University.

It will also help farmers by improving crop and pasture yield forecasts, assisting with frost and drought monitoring and surveillance of vegetation conditions, and provide real-time data to greatly assist the Bureau of Meteorology in assessing cyclonic weather disturbances over the Indian Ocean and WA in particular.

The tracker is funded by WASTAC (WA Satellite Technology and Applications Consortium) whose members include Murdoch and Curtin Universities, DOLA (Department of Land Administration), the CSIRO (Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation), the Bureau of Meteorology and the Federal Mapping Agency.

WASTAC Chairman, Dr Richard Smith, said the consortium’s efforts in the past decade had already produced a number of significant advantages.

“These include improved long range weather forecasts as well as new information on the movements of the Leeuwin current in the Indian Ocean to assist fishermen,” said Dr Smith.

“Farmers have also had access to improved crop and pasture yield forecasts along with frost and drought monitoring to support claims for exceptional circumstances.

“In remote areas monitoring of vegetation conditions and bush fires will occur 24 hours a day, seven days a week, to assist pastoralists and Aboriginal communities in managing fire risks.

“Such successful collaboration amongst State and Commonwealth agencies is unique in Australia and probably the world.”

Dr Smith said that through the State Government, DOLA had provided a lead role in establishing the satellite tracker at Murdoch and was the leading agency in terms of funding.

“The project contributors should also be commended for promoting better management, research and education in the state,” he said.