New Zealand, viewed from space. Photo: NASA/Goddard/NPP
Most of the work being done on a national mission to launch a sovereign satellite is being kept under wraps by officials.
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.
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".
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, both commercially and militarily, worldwide.
Seven briefings were withheld and two briefings from last year were released though with large parts blanked out.
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".
A later briefing in August left in just one line, "Develop our sovereign space capabilities with a national space mission" and redacted the rest.
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.
Australia in 2024 cancelled a multi-billion-dollar programme to create a military-grade satellite communications system, though it was reported last year to be trying again with a more slimmed-down project.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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."
Dual-use tech could be used for both commercial and military purposes, such as satellite imagery gathered by commercial satellites over Ukraine and used to fight Russia.
The briefings sketched out other options for retiring Defence and Space Minister Judith Collins to push for growth, including that the government could consider buying locally if it needed space-enabled data or services. MBIE was expected to do a stocktake to identify gaps where the government could buy space services to fill data gaps.
The Minister for Social Development and Employment, Louise Upston, agreed to cross-portfolio work to look at barriers to developing an aerospace workforce.
"Existing initiatives, such as the Space Prizes and the Space Scholarship, bring profile to space career options - but will likely not be sufficient to spur largescale workforce growth," said a briefing.
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