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\nNew Zealand, viewed from space.
\nPhoto: NASA\/Goddard\/NPP\n<\/p>\n
Most of the work being done on a national mission to launch a sovereign satellite<\/a> is being kept under wraps by officials.<\/p>\n An RNZ request under the Official Information Act (OIA) for the key documents came up mostly empty, with ministerial briefings either largely blanked out or withheld entirely.<\/p>\n The government’s 2024 aerospace strategy set a goal to “establish a national mission through the development, manufacture, launch and operation of one or more sovereign satellites”.<\/p>\n This was to collect data for the likes of protecting ocean zones and for “broader space domain awareness”. Tracking what is happening in space has become huge business<\/a>, both commercially and militarily, worldwide.<\/p>\n Seven briefings were withheld and two briefings from last year were released though with large parts blanked out.<\/p>\n One in February put a sovereign satellite project under “higher-impact medium-term actions”, stating that a national space mission “is an opportunity to support the development of innovative products for future commercialisation and export”.<\/p>\n A later briefing in August left in just one line, “Develop our sovereign space capabilities with a national space mission” and redacted the rest.<\/p>\n New Zealand, including its defence force, relied on partners particularly in the Five Eyes intelligence network and notably the United States for access to space capabilities, including a network of US-run military satellites. Only a few ground-based assets like radars were operated within this country.<\/p>\n Australia in 2024 cancelled a multi-billion-dollar programme<\/a> to create a military-grade satellite communications system, though it was reported last year<\/a> to be trying again with a more slimmed-down project.<\/p>\n The NZ strategy sat behind a government push to double the advanced aerospace sector to $5 billion by 2030. It underlined how satellites were essential for daily life.<\/p>\n But the new OIA response from the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) shed no light on how any such sovereign satellite might be acquired.<\/p>\n Even the titles of three of the seven withheld briefings were not released; all of it held back on the grounds of protecting confidential advice from ministers or officials.<\/p>\n The title of one that was given, from last July, was, ‘Programme approach to a national space mission’, but the document itself was not released.<\/p>\n In a section of one of the two released briefings on improving trade access, all but this line was blanked out: “Increasing protectionism and the sensitive nature of dual-use technologies means there are barriers to international space trade.”<\/p>\n