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Treaty allowing U.S. rockets to launch from Australia goes into effect

Australian commercial spaceports
Australia’s commercial spaceports. Click for original map.

On July 23, 2024 the Australian government finalized its October 2023 agreement with the United States to allow U.S. rockets to launch from Australia soil, as well as allow Australian rocket startups to launch American satellites.

The agreement is mostly a boost for the three spaceports presently vying for business in Australia. Not only will this widen their customer base — with many international rocket startups looking for alternatives because of regulatory burdens elsewhere — it will allow any Australian rocket startups to sell their rockets to American satellite companies. At the moment there is only one such company, Gilmour, but this treaty will encourage investment in others.

This deal will also add impetus to the negotiations presently going on between SpaceX and Australia.

The company is reportedly in discussions with US and Australian authorities to bring down one of its rockets off Australia’s northwest coast and tow it into a yet-to-be-determined port for repatriation to the US. The talks follow a SpaceX Starship rocket making a controlled splashdown in the Indian Ocean in June. There are also reportedly tentative discussions about launching rockets from Australia or bringing them back directly onto Australian soil.

Using Australia as a launch site will not do much to relieve SpaceX of the red tape it has been struggling with from the federal bureaucracy, but it will provide it additional options for increasing its launch rate as well as the testing of Starship. It clearly wants to recover Starships as soon as possible for study, and having them brought to Australia quickly after splashdown would facilitate that effort.

Genesis cover

On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.

 

The print edition can be purchased at Amazon. from any other book seller, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.


The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
 

"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News

5 comments

  • Call Me Ishmael

    “On July 23, 2024 the Australian government finalized its October 2024 agreement …”

    Time machine?

    (Yeah, I know. October 2023.)

  • Call Me Ishmael: Typo fixed. Thank you.

  • john hare

    I find the equatorial launch site interesting. Launch across the gulf to the east and recover the first stage on the opposite coast or on a barge barely offshore. Enhanced performance of downrange recovery in somewhat protected waters.

  • Mike Borgelt

    If you think dealing with the FAA is bad, wait until you deal with Australia’s CASA (Civil Aviation Safety Authority aka Civil Aviation Suppression Authority). I keep telling people from the US that the FAA is the easiest to get along with aviation regulator on the planet.
    I note Gilmour Space have been ready to launch since May and are still waiting for regulatory approval.

  • Mike Borgelt

    O/T but the Chinese Moon sample return that discovered hydrated minerals was covered here a week or so ago..
    As it was at 40N on the Moon it has nothing to do with water ice at the poles.

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