This is the free monthly meeting of the Space Association of Australia - all welcome!We'll be in the Function Room on the first floor of the Caulfield RSL. The venue is disabled friendly and includes a lift. Meals are available at reasonable prices. Ample car parking is available immediately behind the RSL or in St Georges Road. Trams and trains run within 200 metres of the venue.The meeting will be streamed live and then made available on-demand via the Space Association's YouTube channel here - SAA.TV. WOMEN IN SPACE is a special video presentation that traces the history of women pioneers in the U.S. space program. Some, like aviators Wally Funk and Jerrie Cobb, passed the same gruelling tests as male astronauts, only to be dismissed by NASA, the military, and even Lyndon Johnson, as a distraction. It wasn’t until 1995 that Eileen Collins became the first woman to pilot a spacecraft. The program includes interviews with Collins, as well as Sally Ride’s classmates Shannon Lucid, Rhea Seddon and Kathryn Sullivan, and features Mae Jemison, the first woman of color astronaut, and Peggy Whitson, the first female commander of the International Space Station. The hour ends with the next generation of women engineers, mathematicians and astronauts—the new group of pioneers, like Marleen Martinez, who continue to make small but significant steps forward. Narrated by Jodie Foster.The meeting will be streamed live here!

This is the free monthly meeting of the Space Association of Australia - all welcome!We'll be in the Function Room on the first floor of the Caulfield RSL. The venue is disabled friendly and includes a lift. Meals are available at reasonable prices. Ample car parking is available immediately behind the RSL or in St Georges Road. Trams and trains run within 200 metres of the venue.The meeting will be streamed live here and then made available on-demand via the Space Association's YouTube channel - SAA.TV. Our guest speaker, Kjetil Wormnes, is a mechatronics engineer working at the European Space Agency (ESA)Kjetil leads technology research and development activities at the European Space Agency's automation and robotics section of ESTEC - the European Space Research and Technology Centre - ESA's technical heart located in the Netherlands. He has been in charge of activities for developing space debris capturing technologies and has supported both early mission studies for a space debris removal mission as well as e.Deorbit, a European Space Agency mission to remove space debris currently under development. Kjetil also leads research and development activities in other areas of space robotics, and in particular orbital and low gravity robotics and has recently established a new laboratory at ESTEC to specifically support R&D in low gravity robotics. Prior to working for ESA, Kjetil was employed in Australia at the CSIRO where he was working on the early designs of the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder radio telescope and supported Australia's bid for the Square Kilometre Array. Currently, Kjetil is living in Melbourne while on sabbatical from the European Space Agency.

Presented by the Space Association of Australia, MoonshotX and the Carlton Connect Initiative Register for this free event on Eventbrite!Unable to attend the event in person? Then watch the live stream here: http://bit.ly/2qSqjNsSpace technology touches all of our lives daily and the global space technology and exploration industry is worth hundreds of billions annually, stemming from the demand for growth in space exploration and technologies including satellites launch providers, spacecraft components, in-space services, software and robotics.Many now feel that we need to set in place a comprehensive plan to build on the fledgling domestic space industry to capture the global opportunities of the booming space business.In Australia in Space: What the New Space Industry Means for Australia, we will explore the recently released recommendations contained in the Space Industry Association of Australia’s white paper, Advancing Australia in Space and finish the night with a lively and interactive panel discussion on the future of space in Australia.You will hear from leading voices in the Australian space scene to address the question of Australia’s involvement in the emerging space sector: Peter Nikoloff – Secretary of the Space Industry Association of Australia (SIAA) and South Australian Space Advisory Council Member. Peter is also an Executive Director and Co-Founder of Nova Systems and Senior Weapons System Engineer [speaker]Prof. Andrew Dempster – Director of the Australian Centre for Space Engineering Research (ACSR) at UNSW [speaker]Andrea Boyd – Australia’s only ISS Flight Controller stationed at the European Astronaut Centre [speaker]Tim Parsons – Co-Founder and CEO at Delta-V Space Alliance, Co-Founder at X-Lab, Studio Tech Evangelist at iflix [speaker]Dr Katie Mack – Theoretical astrophysicist at the University of Melbourne and science communicator [panel member]Dr Grace Lai – Medical doctor, Founder of Periop Partners, and tech entrepreneur [panel moderator]The space race is now in the hands of private companies, and the sky is by no means the limit – Australia is well positioned to make the next leap forward."Unlike a mining boom, it is a boom that can continue forever, it is limited only by our imagination, and I know that Australians believe in themselves, I know that we are a creative and imaginative nation." – Malcolm Turnbull (Innovation statement 2015)Register for this free event on Eventbrite!Unable to attend the event in person? Then watch the live stream here: http://bit.ly/2qSqjNs

This is the free monthly meeting of the Space Association of Australia - all welcome!We'll be in the Function Room on the first floor of the Caulfield RSL. The venue is disabled friendly and includes a lift. Meals are available at reasonable prices. Ample car parking is available immediately behind the RSL or in St Georges Road. Trams and trains run within 200 metres of the venue.The meeting will be streamed live and then made available on-demand via the Space Association's YouTube channel - SAA.TV. View the livestream here.Katie Mack sheds light on the current state of modern cosmology, the Big Bang, and the ultimate fate of the Universe Dr Katherine (Katie) Mack is a theoretical astrophysicist. Her work focuses on finding new ways to learn about the early universe and fundamental physics using astronomical observations, probing the building blocks of nature by examining the cosmos on the largest scales. Throughout her career as a researcher at Caltech, Princeton, Cambridge, and now Melbourne University, she has studied dark matter, black holes, cosmic strings, and the formation of the first galaxies in the Universe. Katie is also an active science communicator and is passionate about science outreach. As a science writer, she has been published by Slate, Sky & Telescope, Time.com, and other popular publications, and has been a columnist for Cosmos Magazine.

This is the free monthly meeting of the Space Association of Australia - all welcome! We'll be in the Function Room on the first floor of the Caulfield RSL. The venue is disabled friendly and includes a lift. Meals are available at reasonable prices. Ample car parking is available immediately behind the RSL or in St Georges Road.  Trams and trains run within 200 metres of the venue.  The meeting will be streamed live and then made available on-demand via the Space Association's YouTube channel SAA.TV or directly here.  MEDIAN: Methane Detection by In-situ Analysis with NanoLanders - A Mars Mission MEDIAN is aiming at Mars to be the first multi-probe extra-terrestrial network and it's looking for Methane. It is a joint UK, Australian project. Robert Brand is a leading Australian space entrepreneur, aerospace engineer and innovator. At the age of 17, Robert was involved in support for Apollo 11 in Australia with the feeds from Honeysuckle Creek and the Parkes Radio Telescope. He supported almost every mission from Apollo 11 to STS-7 and played a minor support role in Shuttle flights right up to 1985. In that time he worked at the Parkes Radio Telescope in support of the Voyager Uranus encounter and ESA’s Giotto mission to Halley’s Comet. Thunderstruck Aerospace is Robert’s company and the vehicle for several projects such as the StratoDrone and the Mars Median Mission. The Median Mission is based on Methane detection technology and has passed many milestones. The use of penetrators to land the payloads was his concept as was the mapping, orientation and more.   Mars 160 Mission Report The Mars Society's analogue research mission, Mars 160, is using both of the organisation’s analog research stations. This program involves the same seven person crew doing similar science operations for the same period of time – 80 days – initially at the Mars Desert Research Station (MDRS) in southern Utah during the autumn of 2016 and then continuing at the Flashline Mars Arctic Research Station (FMARS) in northern Canada during the summer of 2017. Annalea Beattie is an artist and writer based in Melbourne, Australia. Her art practice is based in space science and she is especially interested in the role art will play in small isolated communities living in extreme environments off- Earth. For the twin desert Mars 160 mission, Annalea is the field artist. Through simulation and in environments analogous to Mars, her research explores how observation is key to the role of all field geologists, including those on a planetary exploration crew.  Annalea is a Director of both the Mars Society Australia and the National Space Society of Australia. She is a member of the British Interplanetary Society and the Victorian chapter of the International Dark Skies Association. Currently she is a crew member of the Mars Society analogue research mission, Mars 160.  Mars 160 Crew Portrait by Leo Flander  Two years ago, Leo Flander completed a Bachelor of Illustration degree and, in the process, rekindled a long lost love of painting. Since then, Leo has become obsessed with painting oil portraits: "Oil portraiture is steeped in tradition as a medium, I am always exploring how it can work in a modern context. To this end I look for the differences between oil painting and other media: not just another painting but also photography, film and even games. I am continually fascinated in the way people are portrayed and what that can say about them. In our photo-obsessed world, I try to offer a different realism to that found in the mechanical click of a shutter. For me oil paintings feel more alive, and more "real" than photos can and this is always at the forefront of my work. From this starting point, I explore what stories can be told through a singular image. Something that lacks the temporality of a movie, or sequence of a comic. With each of my works I try to tell as much of the story of the subject as I can, often creating mythic versions of themselves. I strive to show more than what they look like. Often my subjects are performers, small business owners and scientists - These are people who define themselves with their story." 221

This is the free monthly meeting of the Space Association of Australia - all welcome! We'll be in the Function Room on the first floor of the Caulfield RSL. The venue is disabled friendly and includes a lift. Meals are available at reasonable prices. Ample car parking is available immediately behind the RSL or in St Georges Road.  Trams and trains run within 200 metres of the venue.  The meeting will be streamed live and then made available on-demand via the Space Association's YouTube channel - SAA.TV or directly via https://youtu.be/nlhluhT7t-s 221

This is the free monthly meeting of the Space Association of Australia - all welcome! We'll be in the Function Room on the first floor of the Caulfield RSL. The venue is disabled friendly and includes a lift. Meals are available at reasonable prices. Ample car parking is available immediately behind the RSL or in St Georges Road.  Trams and trains run within 200 metres of the venue.  The meeting will be streamed live and then made available on-demand via the Space Association's YouTube channel - SAA.TV. How to go from a satellite mission plan to a space business - a workshop with Dr Jason Held, CEO of Saber Astronautics This month, we are breaking away from our usual meeting formula to bring you a truly fun, informative and interactive evening! Our guest speaker, Dr Jason Held of Saber Astronautics, will be a conducting a guided tour, and interactive workshop, using Saber's internationally renowned Predictive Ground Station Project (PIGI) software. PIGI is a next-generation space mission control software that brings together the latest techniques in human factors, artificial intelligence, and dynamic 3D data visualization to make it easy for spacecraft operators to monitor, fly, and rapidly diagnose faults in spacecraft systems. By special arrangement with Saber, attendees of the meeting will get a chance to use the software themselves! So, what does PIGI do? Okay, so imagine you have spacecraft, a launch date, and a plan to grow. Now what? In this workshop you will learn how to use a bit of science and the PIGI to calculate the number of customers you can get for a mission. Changing orbits, ground terminal locations, and other space mission fundamentals can greatly affect how many customers you can get and what they can do. Jason will show us how to find out if the mission we plan generates income. We will have a number of laptops available to use, so you can buddy up and get involved. And the winner gets a prize!    About Dr Jason Held, Saber Astronautics PhD, Aerospace and Mechatronics, 2008, University of Sydney BSc, Computer Science, 1993, Virginia Military Institute Saber Astronautics is a space engineering company based in Sydney and Colorado dedicated to researching cutting edge methods of spacecraft control. Prior to founding Saber Astronautics, Dr Held was a US Army Major and Army Space Support Team leader for USSTRATCOM (formerly Space Command) and deployed internationally in support of military space missions. Dr Held was a lead instructor at the Interservice Space Fundamentals Course and a guest engineer at Army Space and Missile Command Battle Lab. He conducted flight software engineering for the Wide Field Camera 3 of the Hubble Space Telescope and testing for the International Space Station. He also conducted verification and validation testing for an invasive class II medical device currently in market. Dr Held was twice a guest instructor for the University of Stuttguart’s IRS Space Station Design Workshop and led a research expedition in the high Canadian Arctic. He also co-founded the Delta-V Spacehub Startup Accelerator. At the University of Sydney, he founded the space engineering laboratory, providing leadership for the university CubeSat project and Australia’s first premix rocket engine

This is the free monthly meeting of the Space Association of Australia - all welcome! We'll be in the Function Room on the first floor of the Caulfield RSL. The venue is disabled friendly and includes a lift. Meals are available at reasonable prices. Ample car parking is available immediately behind the RSL or in St Georges Road.  Trams and trains run within 200 metres of the venue.  The meeting will be streamed live and then made available on-demand via the Space Association's YouTube channel - SAA.TV.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2SQ5ROF1D1M Tragedy struck on the launch pad at Cape Kennedy during a preflight test for Apollo 204 (AS-204) on 27 January 1967. The mission was to be the first crewed flight of Apollo, and was scheduled to launch on 21 February 1967. Astronauts Virgil "Gus" Grissom, Edward White and Roger Chaffee lost their lives when a fire swept through the command module of what came to be known as Apollo 1.

You are invited to join us for the final meeting of the Space Association of Australia for 2016 - all welcome! Our fourth annual Space Trivia Night is free and open to all members, non members, friends and family. These nights are loads of fun and have become the social highlight of the SAA calendar. As usual, we'll be in the Function Room on the first floor of the Caulfield RSL. The venue is disabled friendly and includes a lift. Meals are available at reasonable prices. Ample car parking is available immediately behind the RSL or in St Georges Road.  Trams and trains run within 200 metres of the venue. For planning purposes, we ask that you RSVP your intention to attend and how many will be in your party by clicking on the  Buy Tickets  button at right.​ There is no 'fee', this just allows us to know how many to plan for. To help the night flow, please be at the RSL at or before 7:00 pm so that we can form teams and seat accordingly (we do plan to mix the groups up so please be open to the possibility of sitting with people you may or may not know). We will be screening the original 1966 NASA documentary, Gemini XII Mission, starting promptly a 7:00 pm for those that wish to watch. Others may choose to stand and chat. If you do want to watch the film, please arrive at the meeting early to place a meal order and get settled. We would also like you to place meal orders prior to getting started so the meals can be delivered upstairs at 8.00 pm. So, dust off your space knowledge, get lots of sleep, eat healthy, get out and exercise and most of all, be ready for a fun night, we look forward to seeing you there! 60

 The meeting will be streamed live via the SAA YouTube channel, SAA TV at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xv2k55A7TdI This is the free monthly meeting of the Space Association of Australia - all welcome! We'll be in the Function Room on the first floor of the Caulfield RSL. The venue is disabled friendly and includes a lift. Meals are available at reasonable prices. Ample car parking is available immediately behind the RSL or in St Georges Road.  Trams and trains run within 200 metres of the venue. 50th Anniversary of Gemini XII Buzz Aldrin and Jim Lovell, seen here in a 1966 Gemini 12 photo, will celebrate their mission's 50th anniversary in Florida. (NASA)

  Did you know that the Space Association of Australia has it's very own weekly one-hour radio program The Space Show  that goes to air every Wednesday at 7 pm and is broadcast from the Melbourne bayside suburb of Brighton? Long time member and past president, Andrew Rennie, is the producer/presenter on community radio 88.3 Southern FM. The show aims to promote the public understanding of spaceflight and astronomy, and to provide the public and members of the Space Association with up-to-date news of space related events. The show covers a wide range of current space and astronomical activities, both live and pre-recorded, from around the world and even across the solar system!    "Are you interested in learning about and maybe even getting involved in community radio?"   Here is your opportunity! You are invited to our free Space Show Open Night from 6:00-7:00 pm (immediately prior to the broadcast) on Wednesday, 26 October. We'll introduce Southern FM's new studios at 2 Parliament Street in Brighton to let you know where it is, how the show works, who’s involved and even how you can participate in the show as writer, presenter, producer or in some other way. So, why not come along and see behind the scenes of Australia's longest running space and spaceflight radio program and then stay to watch the show go live to air! No obligation and, if you are at all interested in getting involved, there are NO prerequisites. We will teach you everything you need to know and you will gain valuable skills while having a ball! Apollo 16 Lunar Module Pilot, Charlie Duke, is interviewed by Andrew Rennie and Peter Aylward on The Space Show in October 2014. 1544

This is the free monthly meeting of the Space Association of Australia - all welcome! We'll be in the Function Room on the first floor of the Caulfield RSL. The venue is disabled friendly and includes a lift. Meals are available at reasonable prices. Ample car parking is available immediately behind the RSL or in St Georges Road.  Trams and trains run within 200 metres of the venue. The meeting will be streamed live and then made available on-demand via the Space Association's YouTube channel: https://youtu.be/otji0JZI-aA Mars Update: Journey to the Red Planet Our feature topic will be our third annual review of the current status and feasibility of several planned missions to Mars with commentary and discussion by an expert panel. The evening will provide a local and global overview of plans, proposals, progress and timelines (including Elon Musk and SpaceX's plans for their Mars mission architecture - Making Humans a Multiplanetary Species - which was announced at the International Astronautical Congress 2016 in Mexico on 27 September and a Mars One update) and then to open up the discussion for special commentary from the panel, which will include: Mars One astronaut candidate and Space Association of Australia member, Dianne McGrath; the President of the Melbourne Chapter of the Mars Society Australia, Guy Murphy and others).  Space News: ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter and Schiaparelli Lander Mission  The first mission of the ExoMars programme, scheduled to arrive at Mars on 16 October 2016, consists of a Trace Gas Orbiter plus an entry, descent and landing demonstrator module, known as Schiaparelli. The main objectives of this mission are to search for evidence of methane and other trace atmospheric gases that could be signatures of active biological or geological processes and to test key technologies in preparation for ESA's contribution to subsequent missions to Mars.