Gilmour Space Technologies will attempt the first orbital launch from Australian soil in more than 50 years as early as Thursday morning after receiving final approval from the space agency.
The Australian Space Agency on Friday gave the company its final clearance to launch its Eris rocket from the Bowen Orbital Spaceport in northern Queensland, opening the launch window on May 15.
It puts the Australian-made rocket on track for a maiden launch pending pre-flight checks and the weather, Gilmour Space founder and chief executive Adam Gilmour told InnovationAus.com.
“We’re still shooting for a Thursday morning, but its mainly going to be dependent on the wind. We’ve been luck as we’ve come up here that we’ve got four days of pretty good weather, we think,” he said.
The “final nod” from the space agency follows approval from the Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) last week for what is the second launch window for Gilmour Space this year.
An early launch window opening on March 15 was stopped by Tropical Cyclone Alfred and a longer-than-anticipated process to secure final documentation for the maiden flight.
With the countdown now underway and final preparations already “ahead of schedule”, Mr Gilmour said a team were in Bowen to test the rocket’s avionics and electrical systems without firing the engines.
Staff have been amassing in Bowen to start launch preparation since CASA sign-off, with more than 50 Gilmour Space staff travelling from the company’s Gold Coast headquarters.
After conducting the “dry test”, the team will move to the “fill”, including fueling the rocket, ensuring temperature readings are correct and performing other last minute safety inspections.
The 25-metre Eris rocket consists of three stages. The first and second stages will be powered by large hybrid rocket engines, with the third and final stage powered by a smaller, 3D printed liquid rocket engine.
The Eris TestFlight 1 is expected to be the first of several test flights that aim to reach orbit, with the company already building a second Eris rocket that will incorporate learnings from the first launch.
But Mr Gilmour is hopeful that the rocket will at the very least get off the launch pad, rating the chances at between 55 and 60 per cent. “If we get off the pad that’s a good sign of a decent amount of engine time,” he said.
He is also eyeing the next stage – Max Q, or the moment of peak dynamic pressure and mechanical stress on the rocket – at about 70 seconds into the flight, a point at which many rockets fail.
“A lot of them stuff up then. If we get through that, we’ll go to the end of the engine burn, stage separation, and it’ll be good,” Mr Gilmour told InnovationAus.com on Monday.
The company was granted its launch permit last November – the first-ever permit issued by the space agency for a sovereign launch vehicle that Mr Gilmour has previously said brought “a lot of pain”.
It came more than six months after Gilmour Space first moved Eris into its vertical position on the launchpad at its Bowen spaceport in April last year. The Bowen Orbital Spaceport received Australia’s first orbital launch facility licence for Gilmour’s Bowen spaceport in March 2024.
In September 2024, the company announced that it had successfully completed a key wet dress rehearsal of the launch vehicle, bringing it up to T-10 seconds before launch.
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