Aussie Tech Company Helping Put Boots On The Moon Again After 50 Years

Australian technology company FirstWave Cloud Technology (ASX: FCT) will turn its attention to Florida next week as part of NASA’s program to land the first woman and the first person of colour on the surface of the moon – and eventually the first human on Mars.

FirstWave recently secured an extension of its role providing software to monitor the Artemis missions (www.nasa.gov/specials/artemis/) after FirstWave’s recently acquired Opmantek business initially signed an agreement for the software to be used last year.

Artemis is the first step in the next era of human exploration. Together with commercial and international partners, NASA will establish a sustainable presence on the Moon to prepare for missions to Mars. The first uncrewed mission under the program, Artemis I, is scheduled for launch from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on August 29.

FirstWave CEO Danny Maher said the company was proud to be part of the team delivering humans back to the moon for the first time in 50 years.

“It will be a historic moment to see the first woman and the first person of colour put their footprints alongside Neil Armstrong and the other early moon explorers,” he said. “It is a massive, complex operation, and we are very proud to be providing our software to support it.”

While the exact nature of how NASA is using FirstWave’s software is secret, it was selected to handle events in real-time in a mission-critical setting. One of the key features of FirstWave’s solution is the software’s automated resolution of events which can be applied in any environment.

The primary software modules being utilised by NASA include:

• NMIS – The backbone of a network management system and core for FirstWave’s network management, monitoring and auditing software modules.
• opEvents – Processing the diagnostics of events and leverage intelligent automation to remediate issues.
• opHA – High availability, automated redundancy, with primary-poller functions and geographic distribution of the management system to enable optimal functionality.

The initial contract with NASA was signed by technology group Opmantek Ltd in July 2021. FirstWave acquired Opmantek in January this year.

Opmantek is a leading provider of enterprise-grade network management, automation and IT audit software, with 150,000 organisations using their software across 178 countries and enterprise clients, including Microsoft, Telmex, Claro, NextLink and NASA.

Integrating FirstWave’s CyberCision™ platform with Opmantek’s flagship Network Management Information System (NMIS) and Open-AudIT product enables FirstWave to provide a comprehensive end-to-end solution for network discovery, management and cybersecurity for its partners globally.