James Fettes

It’s the early hours of 22 March 2024. A rocket blasts off from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, USA. On board is a small device. It’s labelled “Multi-resolution scanning”, and it’s packed with CSIRO smarts. Its destination: The International Space Station (ISS). Earth’s farthest outpost of human science and global cooperation, the ISS orbits our planet at 28,000 kilometres per hour.

It’s the early hours of 22 March 2024. A rocket blasts off from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, USA. On board is a small device. It’s labelled “Multi-resolution scanning”, and it’s packed with CSIRO smarts. Its destination: The International Space Station (ISS). Earth’s farthest outpost of human science and global cooperation, the ISS orbits our planet at 28,000 kilometres per hour.

[Music plays and an animation image appears of a spacecraft above a thick coloured line and then the image shows a hand holding a magnifying glass and moving along above the line] Narrator: When we say we’re tracking a spacecraft that doesn’t mean we’re following it down the street to the shops. [Animation image changes to show dotted lines appearing within the coloured line and text appears: Spacecraft tracking] So, what does it mean?