Ready, Green, GO!

A flightcase full of Green-GO headsets and beltpacks kept TV crews connected for Australia’s first commercial space launch recently, as NASA launched from Arnhem Space Centre (ASC) in the sparsely populated Northern Territory. Broadcaster BIE Creative was challenged with producing a livestream of the build-up to the launch and of the launch itself, which was hosted on the Equatorial Launch Australia (ELA) YouTube page. It was ELA’s first collaboration with NASA, which chose their spaceport to fire a BBIX rocket, carrying an atmospheric observation/sensing platform to observe the AlphaCentauri constellations.

The milestone moment for Australia required the BIE Creative team to maintain reliable, continuous contact with each other. A Green-GO system comprising HS200Single and HS200Dual Headsets, and WBPX wireless and BPX wired Beltpacks, interfacing to 4Wire analogue input/output devices, was supplied by Sydney-based specialist Green-GO distributor Event Communications Australia.

“Green-GO was chosen for its robust DECT reception, ease of use, and reliability in the hostile Arnhem Land environment,” says Event Communications Australia’s Rod McKinnon. “Equally important was the portability and low weight of the system — especially considering the smaller aircraft necessary to reach the launch site with equipment being severely weight limited.”

BIE Creative’s Managing Director, Shane Hogan, continues: “As you can imagine, NASA has very strict limitations regarding what frequencies are able to be used in and around the launch site and command centre. All Green-GO components were compliant without issue.”

Silvio Cibien, CEO at ANIMA Network Ltd for Green-GO adds, “We’re thrilled that a Green-GO communications system was used on such a landmark moment for Australia, the ELA and NASA. We designed our products to offer rock solid reliability, and for the broadcasters covering the launch this was mission critical. We’d like to congratulate the teams on a successful project and look forward to more crew communications for space missions using Green-GO solutions.”

The Arnhem Space Centre is located on the Gove Peninsula in the Northern Territory and this was the first of many launches by NASA using the spaceport. Equatorial Launch Australia says the launches have catapulted the country into the space realm, with more exciting opportunities on the horizon.