Page 54 - Australian Defence Magazine November 2022

54 SPACE
NOVEMBER 2022 | WWW.AUSTRALIANDEFENCE.COM.AU
Formal approval of the complex by the South Australian government following ASA’s earlier approval is expected shortly, clearing the way for permanent infrastructure to be built on the site.
“We’ve got the contractors ready to go and we want to do the construction in stages because we’ve got customers who want to launch as soon as they can,” said Damp.
Current infrastructure is a large heavily-reinforced con- crete launch pad. The first new-construction launch pad, anticipated in March or April, will include a flame trench for rocket efflux, enabling the complex to handle larger,
second stages will be powered by a large hybrid rocket engine; the third stage will be powered by a new 3D printed liquid rocket engine.
Eris will be Australia’s first orbital rocket and this will be the first orbital launch attempt from a commercial Austra- lian launch site. The rocket stands at 25 metres, has a fair- ing diameter of up to 1.5 metres, and is planned to deliver a 305 kg payload to low-Earth equatorial orbit at an altitude of 500 km.
“We’ve pretty much finished all the structures at Bowen,” Gilmour CEO Adam Gilmour told ADM.
“The vehicle assembly and payload integration building, the long concrete runway where the rocket is transferred to the launch pad by a transporter/erector, and a launch tower including all the fluid and umbilical cords that go into the rocket. Fluids and gasses are stored behind a big concrete wall and our mission control is about six kilome- tres away.”
“We’ve built Bowen so we can go one size bigger. We’re planning a larger Block 2 vehicle in 2024 with a 1,000 kg payload but any more than that, we’d have to redo stuff. Meanwhile we’re still awaiting Space Agency and Com- monwealth environmental approvals for next year’s launch but I’m pretty confident that we’ll have them by the end of the current year.
“You have to get approval launch by launch so we’ll be requesting approval for the second launch pretty soon.”
AUSTRALIAN SPACE AGENCY
Both Gilmour and Damp separately praised a marked improvement in relations with the ASA, attributing this to the leadership since January 2021 of Enrico Palermo,
“ERIS WILL BE AUSTRALIA’S FIRST ORBITAL ROCKET AND THIS WILL BE THE FIRST ORBITAL LAUNCH ATTEMPT FROM A COMMERCIAL AUSTRALIAN LAUNCH SITE”
liquid fuel rockets. Other construction will include the support required for currently- portable radar and telemetry equipment, and large, insulat- ed vehicle assembly and pay- load integration buildings.
“A launch site creates a cen- tre of gravity that starts to at- tract the broader supply chain because they realise that mov- ing large components around is a supply chain risk, so why
not bring your inventory close to the location you need to operate it from and remove that risk,” added Damp.
GILMOUR SPACE TECHNOLOGIES
Meanwhile Gold Coast-based Gilmour Space Technologies has announced plans to launch its innovative three-stage Eris rocket early in 2023 from the company’s Bowen Orbital Spaceport in Northern Queensland. The first and
GILMOUR SPACE TECHNOLOGIES