CANBERRA, Feb. 27 (Xinhua) -- Australia's peak scientific body and aerospace giant Boeing have celebrated their 30-year partnership by announcing 20 new projects.

The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) announced the new projects on Wednesday, saying 2019 would be the most significant year in the research and development relationship with Boeing.

The projects, including researching lightweight, radiation shielding materials for spaceflight and the development of on-board image processing and analytics for satellites observing Earth, signals a new direction for the partnership towards space-related technologies.

"Extending our partnership with Boeing into space technology will fuel new discoveries for us while also driving towards Australia's target of 20,000 jobs in the local space industry by 2030," CSIRO Chief Executive Larry Marshall said in a media release.

The announcement was made at the Avalon International Airshow outside Melbourne where Karen Andrews, the Minister for Industry, Science and Technology, on Tuesday predicted the domestic space industry would be worth 12 billion Australian dollars (8.6 billion U.S. dollars) by 2030.

"Boeing and CSIRO have a wealth of space technology expertise, and our collaboration stands to propel Australia's space industry forward," Greg Hyslop, Boeing's Chief Technology Officer (CTO), said.