Australian rocket startup raises $36 million in private investment capital
The Australian rocket startup Gilmour Space has now raised $36 million in private investment capital in its most recent fund-raising round. The company had previously raised $46 million.
The funding supports the small launch vehicle startup’s campaign to manufacture, test and begin launching rockets and satellites from the Bowen Orbital Spaceport in North Queensland.
Gilmour Space, founded in 2012, is developing a three-stage rocket called Eris. The first Eris test flight is expected “in the coming months, pending launch approvals from the Australian Space Agency,” according to the Gilmour Space news release. A second test flight is expected later this year and commercial launches are scheduled to begin in 2025. [emphasis mine]
The map to the right shows both the location of Gilmour’s Bowen launch site, but also that of Equatorial Launch Australia (ELA), which is building a spaceport open to all rocket companies.
Gilmour had originally announced plans for an April 2023 launch. Though it is not surprising for a new rocket company to experience delays in developing a new rocket, the highlighted phrase in the quote above, which has appeared in a previous story in September 2023 about the delays at Gilmore, strongly suggests Australia’s government might be a problem as well. Its legal framework is strongly influcenced by Great Britain’s, which has turned out to be a nightmare for both rocket companies and spaceports. That approvals have been pending now for many months is further evidence this is so.
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Eris – Greek goddess of discord and strife. They could have chosen a better name.
Then again, they are dealing with the Australian authorities who want no innovation in Australia at all.
Look at this garbage
https://phys.org/news/2026-07-rocket-threaten-australia-coastal-wildlife.html