The AuScope VLBI project is a research collaboration between the University of Tasmania and Geoscience Australia. AuScope covers Australia’s contribution to the international network of geodetic radio observatories for the International VLBI Service for Geodesy and Astrometry (IVS) and the Asia-Oceania VLBI group for Geodesy and Astrometry (AOV). Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) is a space-geodetic technique. Radio telescopes use signals generated in the environment around supermassive black holes in distant galaxies as anchors, providing the most stable refence available in the Universe. This information is subsequently used to measure global distances to the level of a few millimetres, to precisely determine how fast the Earth rotates, and to support precise orbit determination for satellite navigation and remote sensing missions. As an explainer on the AuScope webpages explains, modern society relies on VLBI observations!

The AuScope antennas are located at three sites across the Australian continent: at the Mt Pleasant Radio Observatory near Hobart, Tasmania; at Yarragadee in Western Australia and in Katherine in the Northern Territory. Each site has an identical 12m telescopes, which now operates in the 2 to 14 GHz band. When not being used for geodesy, the AuScope antennas are also used as elements of the Long Baseline Array, for astronomical VLBI.