Dr Katherine Bennell-Pegg

is a soccer field-sized space station in low Earth orbit, only 400 kilometres up.

It's been there for 26 years.

And that has helped us work together with countries from around the world in ways that we would never have otherwise.

It's been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize twice because of what it's done to help integrate different nations.

Basically, it's also an economic opportunity exploration.

In Australia, our exploration programs through the Australian Space Agency are returning $7 for every $1 we've invested in them into programs like a small lunar rover for the South Pole to take up our field robotics and our automation.

We've

invested in sensors that will be helping landers land on the moon more safely, in sensors that go on the surface that tell us what's under the surface, which is helping us to do that more sustainably on Earth for mining, how to grow plants on the moon that helps us with drought-tolerant crops on Earth.

That's all returning seven to one at least per project.

So I know the money that the space agency administers is government funds.

So we've had a program called Moon to Mars, which is developing the rover for the moon and a number of technologies for space.

That is returning at least seven to one on investment.

The space agency has administered over $170 million in grants over the eight years.

We've had a space agency across more than 90 different organisations, 90 different projects across Australia, hundreds of organisations.

So we're smaller than most space agencies.

We're smaller than most space economies, but we're really emerging in this more commercial space era.

which means that we're able to target our programs to ones that do bring Australia an economic return.

Globally, the space economy is set to triple over the next decade.

So if Australian businesses can access those markets, we stand to benefit economically as well as from having our own capability.

Because Australia really relies on space.