A high-tech space communications site has opened in South Australia. 

A new ground station has opened in Peterborough, in SA's Mid North, containing transmitters to feed data between commercial and government agencies and satellites orbiting in space.

It will allow communications, including weather or GPS data, for example, to be sent and retrieved over 12 times a day when satellites pass over the site.

Advocates say having an Australian-owned, operated, and controlled business is important in maintaining sovereign capability.

The operator of the $1 million site, Nova Systems, has acquired an Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) licence allowing it to serve as a ground station for two American companies and one Italian firm.

The site was picked for its geographical attributes.

“It's very, very flat and so that means there's no shading or shadowing of signals coming backwards and forwards and it's electronically very silent, so there's not much in the way of electromagnetic interference,” Nova Systems chief executive Jim McDowell says. 

The company says it has plans to connect more fibre to the site and will eventually build 75 more satellite dishes, each with 16 antennae.

“At the minute, [the facility] looks like two big golf balls and underneath the surface are the antennae, and one of them looks like a satellite dish you'd have on top of your house,” he said.

“So think of a very complex set of dishes on your roof to receive cable television.”