Southland is a good place for spacecraft and satellite-tracking stations because of its southerly latitude, low horizons, clear view of the sky and lack of radio interference.
Venture Southland, which promotes tourism and economic and community development for three Southland local authorities, enticed two international companies to the region by helping them build facilities at Awarua, south of Invercargill.
Now United States-based company Spire Global is building a pint-sized tracking station behind the public hall at Lochiel, near Winton.
Operated by remote control, it will collect data from the company's network of hundreds of small satellites that orbit Earth carrying out tasks such as tracking shipping and measuring weather conditions.
Spire Global station engineer Robert Sproles, who has been in Southland since Sunday overseeing construction and commissioning, said the company made its own "loaf-of-bread-sized'' satellites in Glasgow, Scotland.
The Lochiel station was the 14th in Spire Global's network, with the nearest other stations being in Guam and Singapore.
He declined to say how much the company was spending at Lochiel.
Venture Southland enterprise project manager Robin McNeill has a background in telecommunications and has led Venture Southland's space-industry work.
He said the initial plan was to help Spire Global build a tracking station at Awarua but the company needed a base elsewhere because of the radio frequency it wanted to use.
"I worked it out that they had to go north of Ryal Bush [about 18km north of Invercargill].
"We talked to the people of Lochiel about using part of the domain and they suggested the land at the back of the hall.''
Spire Global would lease the land from the hall committee, Mr McNeill said.
The location was only feasible because the Government's Rural Broadband Initiative fibre optic cable went past the gate, Mr McNeill said.
Mr Sproles said he was "very pleased and impressed'' with the knowledge and expertise in Southland. Spire Global would use a Southland company as a maintenance contractor.
Mr McNeill said the equivalent of at least two full-time skilled jobs maintaining space-tracking equipment could now be sustained because of the international companies and that could grow, as he hoped to attract another four companies to Southland over time.
