{"id":44241,"date":"2025-05-15T17:49:30","date_gmt":"2025-05-15T09:49:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/a-privately-developed-australian-rocket-is-ready-for-a-historic-launch\/"},"modified":"2025-05-15T17:49:30","modified_gmt":"2025-05-15T09:49:30","slug":"a-privately-developed-australian-rocket-is-ready-for-a-historic-launch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/a-privately-developed-australian-rocket-is-ready-for-a-historic-launch\/","title":{"rendered":"A privately developed Australian rocket is ready for a historic launch"},"content":{"rendered":"

Gilmour Space, a venture-backed startup based in Australia, is about to launch a small rocket from its privately owned spaceport on a remote stretch of the country\u2019s northeastern coastline.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the first time anyone has attempted to reach orbit with a rocket designed and built in Australia. Gilmour\u2019s three-stage rocket, named Eris, could launch at any time during a 10-hour window as soon as Friday, local time. In the United States, the launch window runs from 5:30 pm EDT Thursday until 3:30 am EDT Friday.<\/p>\n

This comes after a 24-hour delay due to an \u201cissue in the ground support system\u201d for the launch, Gilmour said Wednesday.<\/p>\n

The debut launch of Gilmour\u2019s Eris rocket is purely a test flight. Gilmour has tested the rocket\u2019s engines and rehearsed the countdown last year, loading propellant and getting within 10 seconds of launch. But Gilmour cautioned in a post on LinkedIn early Wednesday that \u201ctest launches are complex.\u201d Gilmour added on social media that \u201cweather, systems checks, or technical issues may delay the flight\u2014sometimes by hours, days, or longer.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gilmour, based in Gold Coast, Australia, was founded in 2012 by two brothers\u2014Adam and James Gilmour\u2014who came to the space industry after careers in banking and marketing. Today, Gilmour employs more than 200 people, mostly engineers and technicians. Most are recent engineering graduates in their 20s, along with a handful of space industry veterans with experience at companies like Rocket Lab, Firefly Aerospace, Avio, and Airbus.<\/p>\n

The company has raised approximately $90 million, primarily from venture capital firms, to get the first Eris rocket to the launch pad. The funding also paid for construction of Bowen Orbital Spaceport, Gilmour\u2019s launch site in the Australian state of Queensland. Apart from launch vehicles, Gilmour is working on its own satellite platform, which could launch on Eris or foreign rockets.<\/p>\n

,<\/p>\n

Looking for stable flight<\/h2>\n

But Eris is the core of Gilmour\u2019s business. Built to haul small satellites to orbit, the rocket stands 82 feet (25 meters) tall and has an unusual design for a modern launcher, with three stages, two of which are powered by hybrid engines burning a proprietary solid fuel mixed with a liquid oxidizer.<\/p>\n

Hybrid engines are an unconventional choice. They have a low thrust density, meaning they produce less thrust per unit area of the engine\u2019s nozzle. Effectively, hybrid engines produce relatively little thrust for their size. Hybrid rocket engines also burn fuel more slowly than traditional solid- or liquid-fueled rockets, making it difficult to reach high thrust levels.<\/p>\n

\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Gilmour\u2019s Eris rocket stands on its launch pad in Queensland, Australia.<\/p>\n

Credit:
\n Gilmour Space<\/p>\n<\/figure>\n

There are some advantages to hybrid engines. They are less complex (and probably cheaper) than a liquid-fueled rocket engine, and unlike a solid rocket motor, hybrid engines can be throttled or turned off in the event of a problem. For these reasons, Virgin Galactic\u2019s commercial suborbital rocket plane uses a hybrid engine burning a rubber-based solid fuel and liquid nitrous oxide.<\/p>\n

Gilmour\u2019s rocket uses hydrogen peroxide for an oxidizer. The company hasn\u2019t released details about the rocket\u2019s solid fuel, citing proprietary reasons. Four of Gilmour\u2019s Sirius engines power the first stage of the Eris rocket, collectively generating more than 100,000 pounds of thrust. A single Sirius engine is mounted on the second stage, and Eris\u2019 third stage is driven by a smaller liquid-fueled engine named Phoenix, also designed by Gilmour Space.<\/p>\n

Like many launch startups, Gilmour is setting modest expectations for the inaugural flight of Eris. The first time Gilmour will ignite four of its Sirius engines at the same time will be in the final moments before liftoff.<\/p>\n

\u201cEris is a first-of-its-kind rocket,\u201d Gilmour wrote on social media. \u201cWhile it\u2019s capable of reaching orbit, that\u2019s not the expectation this time. (For context: SpaceX made orbit on its fourth try.) This mission is all about gathering critical data to improve future flights.\u201d<\/p>\n

,<\/p>\n

Michelle Gilmour, the company\u2019s head of marketing and communications, told Ars the first milestone of the test flight \u201cwould simply be getting off the pad. Then, we\u2019d be looking for 10 to 20 seconds of stable flight.\u201d<\/p>\n

A \u201cmanageable\u201d drop zone<\/h2>\n

If the rocket makes it that far, it will clear the coastline and head northeast, soaring over the Great Barrier Reef and the Coral Sea. This flight path raised concerns about environmental impacts to the Great Barrier Reef, but the government of Queensland determined the environmental risk \u201cwould likely be manageable\u201d with drop zones for the first and second stages of the rocket outside the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area.<\/p>\n

\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The Eris rocket will fly northeast from Bowen Orbital Spaceport over the Great Barrier Reef.<\/p>\n

Credit:
\n Queensland Government<\/p>\n<\/figure>\n

Australia\u2019s government approved a launch facility license for Gilmour Space in April of last year, and the Australian Space Agency granted a launch permit for the first flight of the Eris rocket in November. Australia\u2019s Civil Aviation Safety Authority gave Gilmour airspace approval in February. But then, Gilmour encountered more regulatory issues as a tropical cyclone churned off the coast of the launch site. The regulatory and weather delays abated, and the Australian Space Agency issued its final approval for Gilmour\u2019s launch last week.<\/p>\n

This is all uncharted territory for not just Gilmour, but also Australia\u2019s government. Australia hosted a handful of satellite launches with US and British rockets from 1967 through 1971, but Gilmour\u2019s Eris is the first all-Australian launch vehicle designed for orbital flight.<\/p>\n

The Eris rocket is capable of delivering about 670 pounds (305 kilograms) of mass into low-Earth orbit, a payload capacity roughly equivalent to Rocket Lab\u2019s Electron launch vehicle, which flies from New Zealand, home of the world\u2019s only other operational commercial spaceport in the Southern Hemisphere.<\/p>\n

A perfect flight for the Eris rocket would see it reach an orbit around 120 miles (200 kilometers) high at an inclination of 33 degrees to the equator, according to Gilmour. Just in case, the company has placed a jar of Vegemite, a popular food spread in Australia, on Eris\u2019 third stage in a tongue-in-cheek nod to Aussie culture.<\/p>\n

This story was updated on May 14 after Gilmour announced a 24-hour delay.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Gilmour Space, a venture-backed startup based in Australia, is about to launch a small rocket from its privately owned spaceport on a remote stretch of the country\u2019s northeastern coastline. It\u2019s the first time anyone has attempted to reach orbit with a rocket designed and built in Australia. Gilmour\u2019s three-stage rocket, named Eris, could launch at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":44242,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1812,291,1265,25],"class_list":["post-44241","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-australia","tag-commercial-space","tag-gilmour-space","tag-launch"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44241"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44241"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44241\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44242"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44241"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44241"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44241"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}