As Gold Coast-based Gilmour Space Technologies gets ready for its first space voyage with its Eris rocket, excitement is growing. The first-ever launch of an entirely Australian-designed and produced rocket that can reach Low Earth Orbit has been the subject of weeks of public tease from the firm.
Wresat 1, Australia’s first satellite, was launched into orbit in 1967 by a British rocket from the Woomera rocket site, although Gilmour claimed the spacecraft was an entirely Australian technological accomplishment.
Eris is a three-stage rocket that is 23 meters tall and has a diameter of 1.5 meters. It can send cargo weighing 305 kg into equatorial orbit, which is 500 kilometers above Earth.
Driven by Gilmour’s proprietary hybrid rocket engine, Eris has engaged numerous Australian small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), numerous of which will accomplish crucial validation of their component’s performance in orbit for the first time. The 35-ton rocket is ready for installation at North Queensland’s Bowen Orbital Spaceport.
Gilmour intends to launch three test flights, followed by a commercial trip to launch Australian satellites into orbit. Comparing the Eris rocket to Bowen’s Big Mango, Queensland Deputy Premier Cameron Dick made a lighthearted joke about the rocket’s double the length of the nearby tourist destination.
“The Queensland Space Industry Strategy I released in 2020 outlined our plan to create even more jobs for Queenslanders across a wider range of industries,” stated Dick. It is now boldly venturing where no state has gone before, as we had hoped, thanks to Gilmour Space Technologies. “In our country, no Australian-owned, Australian-made rocket has ever launched into orbit, and Queenslanders, supported by the Miles Labor Government, are making history today.”