Page 52 - Australian Defence Magazine November 2022

52 SPACE
NOVEMBER 2022 | WWW.AUSTRALIANDEFENCE.COM.AU
BUILDING A SOVEREIGN LAUNCH CAPABILITY
As Australian interest in the rapidly-expanding space sector continues to grow, so too does interest in the development of commercial launch services both to move the nation into the competitive global market, and to support national security requirements.
JULIAN KERR | SYDNEY
THE subject won attention in July with the successful launch from the Arnhem Space Centre at Nhulunbuy near Gove in the Northern Territory of three sub-orbital 15-metre NASA sounding rockets – noteworthy as the first launches by NASA from a commercial site outside the US.
Final approval for the launches was delayed by the May election with Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles signing off on the plan shortly after being sworn in.
EQUATORIAL LAUNCH AUSTRALIA
Owned by Adelaide-based Equatorial Launch Australia (ELA) and located 12 degrees south of the equator, the Arnhem centre is ideally placed to deploy small satellites into equatorial low earth orbit (LEO) at latitudes between 15 degrees south and north of the equator.
Commercially, equatorial proximity provides an energy advantage from the earth’s rotation that translates into lower cost per kilogram of payload. From Gove the rota- tional velocity is 1,637 km per hour, one third faster than the speed of sound. The only other major launch site as close to the equator as Nhulunbuy is the European Space Agency’s Kourou facility in French Guiana.
Nearby infrastructure at Grove includes an airport, a deep-water port, a well-serviced township with accommoda- tion, retail and hospital facilities, and fibre optic cabling to support equipment and teams moving to the space centre.
Post-launch ELA executive chairman Michael Jones dis- closed the company was in advanced commercial discus- sions with nine other major rocket companies. At least two other additional launches were anticipated in 2022 before ramping up to more than 50 launches by 2024/5. Construc- tion of additional and larger pads to accommodate medium sized/larger payload rockets would begin shortly, Jones said.
In terms of regulating space activities, the Australian Space Agency (ASA) is the Commonwealth entity respon- sible for approving launch facilities and for activities going 100 km above mean sea level or involving high power rock- ets. CASA regulates activities below 100 km, and lower- powered rocket activity.
Both the ELA launch schedule and planned construction are therefore presumably contingent on the Arnhem centre gaining a permanent Launch Facility licence and relevant Launch permits from ASA. The Launch Facility licence is- sued by ASA in May was limited to this year’s NASA scien- tific sounding rocket campaign.
SOUTHERN LAUNCH
Meanwhile Southern Launch, also Adelaide-based, operates the only two facilities currently licensed by ASA
LEFT: Adam & James Gilmour, founders of Gilmour Space Technologies
OPPOSITE ABOVE: Gilmour Space Technologies’ Bowen Orbital Spaceport (BOS) in Northern Queensland
GILMOUR SPACE TECHNOLOGIES