![\"Gilmour](\"https:\/\/cdn.satnow.com\/news\/Gilmour_space_cover_space_638664740942017658.png\")
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Gilmour Space an Australian launch vehicle company has received a license for its first orbital launch, which could take place before the end of the year. The company announced Nov. 5 that it received a launch permit from the Australian Space Agency for the first flight of its Eris small launch vehicle from a site in northern Queensland called Bowen Orbital Spaceport.<\/p>\n
The license was the final major milestone for the launch. \u201cWith this green light, we will soon attempt the first orbital test flight of an Australian-made rocket from Australian soil,\u201d said<\/span> by Adam Gilmour, chief executive of Gilmour Space.<\/strong><\/p>\n The company said the license came with \u201ca number of conditions\u201d that must be met before the launch and requires a 30-day notification period before the launch. \u201cOur team is assessing the conditions of the permit and will advise on the anticipated launch date for Eris TestFlight1 in the coming weeks,\u201d Gilmour said.<\/p>\n The 30-day notification period, means the earliest Gilmour Space could attempt a launch is early December. \u201cThe goal is to launch this year, of course, but we recognize that the holiday period will present logistical challenges to our team,\u201d including travel to and accommodations at the launch site. \u201cIf a December launch isn\u2019t feasible, then we will be back in early January.\u201d<\/p>\n Gilmour Space received a permit for the spaceport itself in March, and at the time was preparing for a launch as soon as early May. However, the company ran into licensing delays that were not resolved until now.<\/p>\n Michelle Gilmour said it was possible that the Australian Space Agency \u201cunderestimated the time and resources\u201d needed to evaluate the license application, particularly given the small size of the agency. \u201cUltimately, our priority, shared by the agency, is for a safe and successful launch. Taking the extra time to ensure that they are fully confident in our vehicle, flight path, and safety measures would therefore come first, even above the launch schedule.\u201d<\/p>\n The company continued launch preparations while awaiting the license. That included a wet dress rehearsal in September where the rocket was fueled and went through a countdown that stopped 10 seconds before liftoff. That allowed engineers to troubleshoot issues with the rocket and ground systems, such as two faulty valves that needed to be replaced and minor software modifications.<\/p>\n Eris is a three-stage vehicle designed to place up to 215 kilograms into a 500-kilometer sun-synchronous orbit and 305 kilograms into a 500-kilometer equatorial orbit. It uses hybrid engines, with a liquid oxidizer and solid fuel, in the first two stages and a liquid-propellant engine in the upper stage. The company raised $55 million Australian ($36.5 million) in a Series D round in February. The company has raised more than $140 million Australian to date.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Gilmour Space an Australian launch vehicle company has received a license for its first orbital launch, which could take place before the end of the year. The company announced Nov. 5 that it received a launch permit from the Australian Space Agency for the first flight of its Eris small launch vehicle from a site […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"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":[26,25,54],"class_list":["post-6367","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-ground","tag-launch","tag-launch-vehicle-platforms"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6367"}],"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=6367"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6367\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6367"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6367"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6367"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}