Funding

The Australian government is getting local startups to head to Mars for $3.6 million

- February 3, 2025 2 MIN READ

Five Australian startups have scored $3.6 million in Moon to Mars supply chain capability grants as part of NASA’s ambitions to explore beyond the chunk of rock orbiting 384,400km from Earth. South Australian company entX scored $1 million to develop a radioisotope heater unit. The unit will help payloads withstand the extreme low temperatures on… Read more »

Space

Skip to the Moon: the team behind a $42 million Australian Space Agency project to build Australia’s first lunar ‘Roo-ver’ revealed

- December 17, 2024 2 MIN READ

A consortium of 21 startups, space and manufacturing companies, mining giant BHP and several universities will collaborate in a project to put an Australian-made rover on the Moon. The ELO2 Consortium, co-led by EPE Oceania and Lunar Outpost Oceania, is part of NASA’s Artemis Moon exploration program. The group has been charged with a $42… Read more »

Flavia Tata Nardini and Matt Pearson,
Funding

Satellite startup Fleet Space orbits $800 million valuation with $150m Series D

- December 12, 2024 3 MIN READ

South Australian startup Fleet Space Technologies has raised $150 million in a Series D that values the satellite developer and data analytics platform at more than $800 million. The round was led by Canada’s Teachers’ Venture Growth, the VC arm of Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan. Existing investors Blackbird Ventures, Hostplus, Horizons Ventures, Artesian Venture Partners,… Read more »

Space

Gilmour Space lands satellite contract with WA’s LatConnect 60 for orbital carbon emissions observations

- November 27, 2024 2 MIN READ

Queensland startup Gilmour Space is teaming up with Perth-based Earth observation company LatConnect60 in the second deal involving the rocket builder’s 100-kilogram satellite “bus”, ElaraSat. The collaboration comes just weeks after Gilmour Space landed regulatory approval for the launch of its 23-metres-high Eris rocket in an orbital test flight from its rocket launch pad in… Read more »

Samantha Harvey
Life hacks

The Booker Prize winner, Orbital by Samantha Harvey, is a powerful meditation on our existence and hunger for life beyond Earth

- November 15, 2024 4 MIN READ

Samantha Harvey’s Orbital has won the 2024 Booker prize. What it so skilfully and ambitiously exposes is the human cost of space flight set against the urgency of the climate crisis. While a typhoon of life-threatening proportions gathers across south-east Asia, six astronauts and cosmonauts hurtle around Earth on the International Space Station. Their everyday… Read more »

Satellite Orbiting Earth
Politics

The Australian government has killed off a $7 billion military satellite project, increasing the risk of cyber attacks

- November 6, 2024 3 MIN READ

In a significant blow to Australia’s defence capabilities, the federal government is cancelling what would have been the nation’s largest-ever space project: a $7 billion military satellite communications system. The decision was confirmed in a press statement on Monday. It comes just 18 months after the Albanese government gave the green light to the ambitious… Read more »

space junk
Space

Space junk is becoming a massive problem as satellites disintegrate, with 4300 tonnes now orbiting Earth

- October 24, 2024 4 MIN READ

A large communications satellite has broken up in orbit, affecting users in Europe, Central Africa, the Middle East, Asia and Australia, and adding to the growing swarm of space junk clouding our planet’s neighbourhood. The Intelsat 33e satellite provided broadband communication from a point some 35,000km above the Indian Ocean, in a geostationary orbit around… Read more »

Gilmour Space hypersonic flight test
Space

Queensland rocket maker Gilmour Space is getting into the hypersonic flight test business

- July 26, 2024 2 MIN READ

Rocket developer and satellite launcher Gilmour Space Technologies will kick off a new suborbital flight test service in Australia next year for commercial and defence customers that require hypersonic speeds above Mach 5 (five times the speed of sound). The move comes amid frustrating delays in approval to launch the first Australian-made orbital rocket, developed… Read more »

iLaunch lead Prof Colin Hall, Dr Marta Ilusca Jane, Dr Jebum Choi and Dr Kamil Zuber from UniSA
Funding

4 space projects score $18 million as iLAuNCH opens Adelaide 3D metals printing plant

- July 24, 2024 2 MIN READ

Four space research projects at the University of South Australia (UniSA)  have received $18 million in funding as part of the $230m iLAuNCH program. The funding coincides with the opening of a new Advanced Manufacturing Metal 3D printing facility at VPG Innovation, in Adelaide’s Camden Park. The 3D printing machines can produce titanium and nickel… Read more »

Funding

NSW launches $500,000 in grants for space tech

- July 22, 2024 2 MIN READ

The global space economy is expected to be worth forecast to be worth $2.7 trillion with a decade, so the NSW government has decided to get in on the action with $500,000 in grant funding. The new NSW Space+ Program grants have been launched ahead of an estimated 10,000 delegates heading to Sydney in September… Read more »

Space

3 Australian space tech startups land $18 million in government grants for India partnerships

- May 1, 2024 2 MIN READ

Three space tech startups have received $18 million under the International Space Investment India Projects program, funded by the Australian government. Western Australia’s LatConnect60 received close to $5.8 million to develop and build a Low Earth Orbit satellite in Australia to collect information on carbon emissions at a very high resolution. The satellite will be… Read more »

SpaceX Falcon 9 launch
Space

Fleet Space sent its latest satellite into orbit with SpaceX

- April 18, 2024 2 MIN READ

The latest Centauri-6 satellite developed by Adelaide mining tech startup Fleet Space Technologies is now in orbit after heading skywards aboard SpaceX’s  Bandwagon-1 “ridesharing” mission. The Falcon 9 reusable rocket’s payload of 11 satellites took off from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida last week.  The Centauri-6 microsatellite brings Fleet Space’s constellation of low earth… Read more »

Adam and James Gilmour,
Space

Gilmour is go: Queensland rocket builder’s launchpad approved for lift offs

- March 5, 2024 2 MIN READ

Gold Coast rocket startup Gilmour Space has been granted approval to launch from its north Queensland facility. Federal regulators gave the company the green light under new laws introduced in 2018 to help develop Australia’s fledging space technology sector. Gilmour has developed its own hybrid rockets with a more environmentally friendly propellant and plans to… Read more »