Kicking off our top memories and highlights of 2025 posts for the team. It's a great way for us all to remember the good times we had and get us ready for the year ahead.

ANU Institute for Space | InSpace's Associate Director of Strategic Projects Kate Ferguson is first up.

2025 was a year where we got to celebrate great successes in some of Australia’s biggest space initiatives.

A big highlight was the announcement of Project SWIFT, in which an Optus-led consortium will build and launch a sovereign LEO satellite to advance cutting edge connectivity technology. This exciting project builds on the innovative work The Australian National University is already working on under iLAuNCH Trailblazer in partnership with Optus and Leonardo UK to build smaller, lower cost laser communications ground stations. The announcement was the culmination of over 18 months planning, negotiations and hard work and it was fantastic to see it officially kick off!

ANU also reaffirmed our commitment to the Roo-ver Mission at a signing ceremony at the 76th IAC 2025 Sydney. I was thrilled to share our contributions to the Roo-ver Mission in space qualification, the communications architecture and future technology, such as optical communications at the AUSSPACE25 summit.

Photos: From the SWIFT Announcement and IAC 2025 Sydney where ANU signed a document highlighting the ongoing contributions to the ROO-VER Mission.