Earthspace was formed in 2007 by founder, Roger Franzen, to service what was expected to be a growing need for deep and broad space engineering and related engineering management experience. As an expert space consultancy, Earthspace’s mission is to support Government, Defence and emerging commercial Peek Integrators by providing the benefit of over 150years of aggregate industry experience.
Australia is rich with great ideas, innovation and entrepreneurialism. Taking great ideas from a laboratory concept to a working, reliable and trusted space based product is hard and has many steps that need to be taken correctly.
The Earthspace Knowledge Vault provides confidential advice, project planning and deep expertise to assist Australian integrators to grow a level of professionalism to an internationally recognised level.
Earthspace has the aggregate experience of Australian and International space veterans, Engineers and Scientists with real ground up experience of the design, development, fabrication, assembly, integration and test of complex space systems ranging from popular Cubesats to full sized spacecraft including Geostationary Earth Orbit Communications Satellites.
This level of space domain science, engineering, project management and industry experience in a single Australian owned and operated company is unprecedented in Australia. Earthspace will help you be your best.
Ed Kruzins is a member of the National Council of Space Engineering and an Honorary Fellow of the CSIRO. Previously he was Director of the NASA-JPL Canberra Deep Space Communications Complex from 2012-21 responsible for tracking obligations to the fleet of 40 international space missions operating across the Solar System on behalf of NASA & CSIRO under the auspices of US/AS Bilateral Space Tracking Treaty. Prior, as the Director General of Capability Science to the Australian Department of Defence (DoD), Ed was science advisor to the Chief of Capability Development on major capital equipment acquisitions under the Defence Capability Plan. He was a member of the Defence Options Review Committee and Capability Development Boards.
As previous Systems Engineering Manager of CDSCC Tidbinbilla in Canberra, his tenure provided 24/7 ground station capability for key space missions including the Cassini, Huygens Titan encounters, the Mars & Lunar Recon Orbiter, Mars Rover, Deep Impact and the Voyager spacecraft. Earlier employment with DSTO included joint authorship of Defences first Network Centric Warfare Roadmap and he was TTCP National leader for Space Based Surveillance.
Ed began his working career in the UK with BAE/Matra/Marconi Space Systems where he provided systems and design engineering for European commercial and military satellite subsystems, including Olympus 1, Inmarsat 2, Telecom 2 and Skynet 4. With the European Union as sponsor, his team provided the very first study work on the European Galileo navigation constellation.
Ed obtained his PhD degree at Southampton University UK, in Aerospace Engineering and obtained his science degree with honours at the University of Sydney in Astrophysics. He is a graduate of the International Space University 1990 and holds the rank of WGCDR in the Royal Australian Airforce specialist reserve on space engineering.
Phil Crosby trained as a communications engineer in the UK before running his own industrial electronics firm in Sydney. He then worked in scientific instrumentation, followed by 12 years with NATA applying technical management Standards to industry. He established four overseas NATA offices, led a science impact study in Antarctica, and a review of nuclear isotope production at ANSTO. In 2005, Phil joined The Boeing Company as Industry Participation Strategist for aerospace, then to CSIRO as Business Strategist for Astronomy and Space. In 2009 he was posted to the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) telescope mega-project in the UK for two years in 2009, completing his PhD in Manchester.
Phil returned to CSIRO as Assistant Director for Astronomy & Space Science (WA), dividing his time between oversight of the $170 million ASKAP project and industry liaison for the SKA. On returning to Sydney in 2015, Phil joined CSIRO’s new Space Science team, responsible for establishing a credible and capable core group underpinning Australia’s steep sector growth through liaison with Institutions, Government, and Industry.
Phil holds qualifications in electronic engineering, business, and environmental management. His PhD was on success factors of high-technology mega-projects and he is a Fellow of the International Centre for Complex Project Management. Phil is a recipient of the BAE SYSTEMS Chairman’s award for SKA Industry Engagement, and a team recipient of CSIRO’s Chairman’s Medal for the ASKAP telescope project. He is Chair of the Space Industry Association of Australia (SIAA) Advisory Board, and a Member of the ASCER Advisory Board.
Phil currently consults to public and private organisations on mega-project success, risk management, and international industry engagement strategy.
Roger Franzen is one of Australia’s acknowledged space experts. He has spent most of his career analysing, managing and implementing solutions to complex multi-discipline engineering problems in space and related fields. After commencing his professional life in Perth, his career soon moved to the UK and Europe. Combining strong interpersonal, organisational and collaborative skills with intuitive technical abilities, he contributed to the success of many early European Space Agency commercial space missions. Returning to Australia in late 1986 to work for Auspace Limited and then, in 1998, accepting the role of CEO of Auspace, Australia’s then premier space engineering company, he has contributed to and influenced Australian civilian and defence space activities, receiving the National Space Society of Australia’s Space Pioneer Award in 2002.
Leaving Auspace in 2007, Roger began a broader role of education, facilitation and engineering consultancy across the fields of astronomy, science and Defence engineering. A strong relationship builder and communicator, he consults, facilitates and advises research organisations, universities and the private sector on space and astronomical engineering matters and participates regularly in relevant national events. In 2010, Roger joined the Australian National University (ANU) to lead the engineering program at Mt Stromlo during which time, he implemented Australia’s premier space test facilities at the AITC. In 2015, Roger joined the CSIRO under contract to lead the Square Kilometre Array International Dish Design Consortium, the largest of the SKA design consortia. Since 2017, Roger has consulted through Shoal Group to support AFHQ with space domain situational awareness and broader military space matters.
In December 2019, Roger was awarded the level of Honorary Fellow by Engineers Australia, its highest grade. Roger is also an Associate Fellow of the AIAA.
Roger is a strong advocate of appropriate self-reliance in Space for Australia.