Description
The Story of how Melbourne University Students Built Australia’s First Satellite
About the Book
In the 1960s, a group of University of Melbourne Science and Engineering students banded together to build a satellite in their spare time. Share the journey of those students as they built Australis OSCAR 5 and had it launched into orbit by NASA in January 1970. Australis operated successfully for nearly two months before its batteries ran out. It was the first satellite built in Australia and achieved a number of important technical milestones, including over a dozen world firsts.
About the Author
Owen Mace was educated at Geelong Grammar School and attended the University of Melbourne where he studied Electrical Engineering and Electronics. Following graduation, he joined the Physics RAAF Department of the University for his PhD in balloon-borne astronomy. He joined the staff of the Department and moved to the Australian Defence Force Academy in Canberra in 1986. Owen’s next move was to Adelaide and private industry, including the defence industry, and finally he joined an information technology company before retiring in 2009. He enjoyed short stints with the Ericsson Research Laboratory, an aircraft flight test company and an industry association.
