Specialist Node > Space Situational Awareness

Our team uses The University of Western Australia’s Zadko Telescope to pursue a space situational awareness and space surveillance program involving international partners. Space Situational Awareness refers to keeping track of objects in orbit and predicting where they will be at any given time.

About the Zadko telescope

In 2020, UWA’s Zadko Telescope was contracted by the European Space Agency (ESA) to track potentially hazardous bodies and provide data for impact hazard assessment. It is located in a purpose-built “rolling roof” observatory, close to the UWA gravitational research facility, about 70 kilometres north of Perth.

The French Space Agency (CNES) is also using the Zadko Telescope to monitor space asset launches and space debris risk.

CNES is building a new global array of receivers for low Earth orbit satellites – and the Australian part of that network is led by the Zadko team at UWA.

To the right you can see the Zadko team in the Zadko Observatory.

ISC Team


  • Associate Professor David Coward (Science Director)
  • Dr Bruce Gendre (Systems manager and scientist)
  • John Moore (Observatory and site manager)
  • John Kennewell (Honorary Adjunct)
  • Dr Fiona Panther
  • Ms Eloise Moore

Partners and Collaborators


  • European Space Agency (ESA)
  • 6ROADS (ESA contractor)
  • POLSA (Polish Space Agency)
  • Ariane Goup
  • JAXA (Japanese Space Agency)
  • Slingshot Aerospace (UWA)
  • ARC Centre of Excellence for Gravitational Wave Discovery (OzGrav)