CANBERRA, Aug. 16 (Xinhua) -- Australian researchers have revealed a new piece of equipment that will help them test the resilience of equipment before it is sent to space.

The Heavy Ion Accelerator Facility (HIAF) at Australian National University (ANU) on Tuesday unveiled the new space irradiation testing beamline.

Funded by the Australian Space Agency (ASA), the beamline tests if equipment can cope with the pressure of heavy particles found in space.

It is the first irradiation testing beamline in Australia and will mean local space companies will no longer have to rely on facilities overseas that are struggling to keep up with high demand.

Mahananda Dasgupta, Scientific Director of the HIAF, said heavy particles were particularly problematic for new equipment sent into orbit.

"There is a range of radiation, gamma rays, electrons, particles," she was quoted by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) on Wednesday.

"This is about the particles, which are like firing a cannonball at a piece of equipment, whereas gamma rays are like throwing ping pong balls."

The ASA is hopeful that the new beamline will help achieve its goal of growing the value of Australia's space industry to 12 billion Australian dollars (7.7 billion U.S. dollars) by 2030.

It was unveiled to coincide with the 50th birthday of the HIAF, which began operations in 1973 at the ANU Research School of Physics as one of only three facilities in the world with such a high capacity.

HIAF is a 100 million dollar facility and the highest energy ion accelerator in Australia, Dasgupta said.

"When the accelerator was tested 50 years ago it was using proton beams, and it is the very same beam which is going to be deployed for testing space radiation." Enditem

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