Gilmour announces target date for first launch of its Eris rocket
Australia’s commercial spaceports. Click for original map.
The rocket startup Gilmour Space today announced that it is targeting March 15, 2025 for the first orbital test of its Eris rocket, lifting off from its private Bowen spaceport on the east coast of Australia.
The news follows final airspace approvals from the Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) and Airservices Australia, clearing the last regulatory hurdle before launch. It also marks the culmination of years of innovative R&D and manufacturing by the Gold Coast-based company, which developed the Eris launch vehicle and Bowen Orbital Spaceport in North Queensland.
Gilmour Space made history in March last year when its Bowen spaceport was granted the first orbital launch facility licence in Australia, and when it secured the country’s first Australian Launch Permit for Eris TestFlight 1 in November. Now, with airspace arrangements finalised and mandatory notice given to the Australian Space Agency, the company is preparing for liftoff.
Obtaining its permits from Australia’s government has taken years. The company first hoped to launch in 2022, but the red tape stymied that possibility.
If successful however this company’s achievement will be multifold. It will not only beat into orbit numerous other startups in the U.S. and Europe, it will give Australia its own orbital rocket built in Australia. For a country whose government never had much interest in joining the world’s space power — and appeared for the past three years determined to squelch this private company — Gilmour’s achievement will be significant. If anything, its success could force that government to change its ways
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
Australia’s commercial spaceports. Click for original map.
The rocket startup Gilmour Space today announced that it is targeting March 15, 2025 for the first orbital test of its Eris rocket, lifting off from its private Bowen spaceport on the east coast of Australia.
The news follows final airspace approvals from the Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) and Airservices Australia, clearing the last regulatory hurdle before launch. It also marks the culmination of years of innovative R&D and manufacturing by the Gold Coast-based company, which developed the Eris launch vehicle and Bowen Orbital Spaceport in North Queensland.
Gilmour Space made history in March last year when its Bowen spaceport was granted the first orbital launch facility licence in Australia, and when it secured the country’s first Australian Launch Permit for Eris TestFlight 1 in November. Now, with airspace arrangements finalised and mandatory notice given to the Australian Space Agency, the company is preparing for liftoff.
Obtaining its permits from Australia’s government has taken years. The company first hoped to launch in 2022, but the red tape stymied that possibility.
If successful however this company’s achievement will be multifold. It will not only beat into orbit numerous other startups in the U.S. and Europe, it will give Australia its own orbital rocket built in Australia. For a country whose government never had much interest in joining the world’s space power — and appeared for the past three years determined to squelch this private company — Gilmour’s achievement will be significant. If anything, its success could force that government to change its ways
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
It’s almost certainly going to take a Liberal government (note that despite the name, the Australian Liberal Party is the main center-right party in Australian politics) returning to power in Canberra to really have any hope of seeing these regulatory straight jackets removed. And even then, the hope has to be that they really move the Overton Window on space regulation in doing so, so that it won’t be easily reversed when they lose power.
The next election is this May, as things stand now. Fortunately, the Liberals are maintaining a sizable polling lead.
I don’t closely follow politics in Oz but my impression is that the Albanese government is very much like those currently in power in Germany and the U.K. – e.g., proto-totalitarian woke dhimmi. One can only hope the electorate sends them packing while they still have a chance.
It would be nice if Peter Dutton was a populist figure of the Trumpian sort, but he seems to be pretty much a conventional law-and-order conservative. That would certainly be a vast improvement over Albanese but not, I think, sufficient to move the political Overton Window in Australia as Trump, Millei and Meloni have done in the U.S., Argentina and Italy, respectively. Perhaps Millei can encourage Dutton – should he win – by making him the gift of a chainsaw as he recently did to Elon. The Chainsaw Brigade urgently needs more recruits.
One thing I have wondered about with Australian launches at some time in the future. Is there enough safe flight corridor area available for flight over land. Purpose would be to have land recovery and transport back to launch site. I seem to recall reading somewhere that some roads in the outback have virtually no size limitations on the vehicles. No idea if that is true, though if is is, a 6 meter core could be trucked back in a matter of hours. Efficiency of downrange recovery well known compared to RTLS.
john hare,
Interesting idea, but I see some problems. The biggest would be the need for multiple booster landing sites as multiple launch azimuths would need to be supported. At-sea landing can accommodate any azimuth, but fixed land sites would each be able to accommodate only a narrow wedge of azimuths as re-entering booster stages tend to have little or no cross-range capability.
The second problem is the road network in Oz. It’s mainly laid down along the periphery of the country – which makes sense as most of the population lives on one or another of the county’s coasts. Land recovery only makes sense if one is launching from Western Australia. The only large city in Western Australia is Perth and it’s coastal. But the width of Oz is 4,000 km – not a good match to ideal ranges for optimal down-range booster recovery. SpaceX’s drone ships, for instance, are placed only a few hundred km from their KSC and Canaveral launch pads.
There is only one major north-south road that is even approximately such a distance from Perth and it doesn’t go all that far into the interior of Western Australia. Thus, it would also constrain the choice of launch azimuths. The interior of Oz is notably road-poor.
Bottom line? Oz is an island nation/continent. Most of its industry and population are East-coastal and all of its major cities are ports. Thus, it makes sense that’s its launch sites should be coastal as well and that reusable boosters should be recovered at sea as SpaceX and – soon – Blue Origin do here.
The only way land recovery of boosters launched from inland spaceports will ever likely make sense is for all such ops to be Return-To-Launch-Site. That eliminates both the multiple landing site problem and the road transport back to launch site problem. Once large reusable rockets reach a decent level of reliability we may see something of this sort a number of places, but I would expect at least another decade to pass before that becomes a thing.