Homegrown rocket set for historic and game-changing launch from Bowen, Queensland

Gilmour Space Technologies is about to put Australia on the space innovation map, with an historic and imminent rocket launch from Bowen in Far North Queensland.

The launch of the Eris Rocket will mark the first time in Australian history that an Australian developed, manufactured, assembled and tested rocket launches into orbit from Australian soil.

Speaking at World Science Festival Brisbane, two of Gilmour Spaces’ senior members, Ashley Hasforth, Chief Commercial Officer and Kody Cook, Deputy Chief Engineer (Systems Engineering) discussed the upcoming moment with ABC’s Kate O’Toole and an audience at the State Library Queensland.

Headquartered on the Gold Coast, with a spaceport in Bowen, Gilmour Space Technologies has bold plans for the future, with Test Flight 1 of the Eris rocket just the beginning of a rocket launching enterprise from Australia.

Describing themselves as an ‘end-to-end space provider’, once Gilmour Space achieves successful orbits, the privately owned business will design, build and launch rockets and satellites into orbit – one of only three companies in the world that has this capability.

“One of the big advantages that we have, if you can launch rockets, you basically can control what can go into space. So we have a lot of control of what we can send up there,” Hasforth said.

Before they get to the commercialisation of launching satellites into space for commercial and government clients, the team must perfect the launch.

Taking investors and the public on the journey is part of the mission, with Hasforth emphasising that success for the first test flight doesn’t necessarily mean getting all the way into orbit.

“To tell people that 10 seconds (in the air) or getting off the (launch) pad is a success, is hard to believe, but from that time we can get so much data that’ll put us in such a good place for future launches, you can’t put a dollar value on that,” Hasforth said.

Deputy Head of Engineering, Kody Cook added, “When you consider everything that happens before TO (take-off), to have done all of that math, gone over all of the regulatory hurdles, to have done all of the design, all of the testing, all the analysis, by the time the clock hits zero, you are 99.9% of the way to having that capability ready to orbit.”

Resting in its vertical launch position for almost 12 months, the Eris is ready to take its first flight – and why from Bowen may you ask? Cook says it’s all about efficiency, and being near the equator.

“If you think about spinning a basketball and looking at a single point on that basketball, if you’re near that centre line, you’re travelling pretty quickly and that actually gives you a kick if you’re going into a pro-grade orbit,” Cook said.

“There’s a lot of math involved but it turns out that being close to the equator is good but you don’t have to be right on it.”

Discover more about Gilmour Space Technologies game-changing rocket launch and the challenges overcome to get to this exciting point in Australia’s space innovation history. Watch the World Science Festival Brisbane, In Conversation event in the video player above.