In October, Scott Morrison was surprisingly unveiled as the new chairman of Space Centre Australia, the planned spaceport in Far North Queensland.

The move has the potential to hugely disrupt Australia’'s launch sector, which already has four spaceports scattered around the country.

Now, a few weeks later, the former prime minister joins Robert Dougherty in our studio in North Sydney.

The pair discuss the new government’s cuts to the space sector, whether the industry will recover, and how Australia can take advantage of its geographical advantages to become a leader in launch.

From 29 September to 25 November, Earth will have a new temporary ‘mini moon’.

Named 2024 PT5, the object is actually an asteroid from the Arjuna asteroid group that will be captured by Earth’s gravity for 57 days.

It’s so small and faint that it won’t be visible to the eye or even with small telescopes, but it will be visible to larger telescopes.

Astrophysicist Dr Laura Driessen, from the University of Sydney, talks through the history of mini moons and what the rare discovery means.

In 2013, Swedish researchers discovered that beetles used the Milky Way to navigate at night, realising its fixed point in the sky could help them roll dung balls in a straight line.

Now, a decade later, researchers at the University of South Australia (UniSA) are using that breakthrough as inspiration for a new project aimed at improving navigation for satellites.

They have developed a computer vision system that reliably measures the orientation of the Milky Way, which could one day lead to a back-up method of stabilising satellites in low light.

Here, Professor Javaan Chahl, who oversaw the initiative, discusses how the plan works.