Streaky Bay eyed as potential South Australian rocket launch site as space industry builds

STREAKY Bay Council has given the go ahead for a rocket launch that will miss orbit and instead splash into the Great Australian Bight.

• SA faces stiff competition to take lead for Australian space industry

STREAKY Bay Council has given the go ahead for a rocket launch that will splash into the Great Australian Bight.

Adelaide company Southern Launch is gearing up for a practice shot, using mobile infrastructure, for the first commercial rocket launch in the new space era of Australia.

The company wants to try it first with mobile infrastructure before seeking to build a permanent launch site.

SA now has more than 60 space start-ups, which need somewhere to launch satellites and rockets from.

Premier Steven Marshall has told The Advertiser that Defence SA is exploring all options for a launch site in the state.

The federal Defence Department has made it clear that classified defence projects at Woomera will make it impossible to allow SA start-ups to use the launch site there.

The launch of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral, Florida. Picture: Malcolm Denemark/Florida Today via AP

Mr Marshall said the State Government was dedicated to making the best possible bid to ensure SA is the nation’s new space headquarters.

Asked about possible launch sites if Woomera is out of the question, he said that “I think we have to explore every single option and that’s why we’re dedicating resources within Defence SA”.

Southern Launch chief executive officer Lloyd Damp, an aerospace engineer from Defence’s Defence Science and Technology Group, said Streaky Bay was a promising location.

Key criteria for a good launch spot include keeping people safe and not damaging the environment, he said. He pointed to the cluster of nanosatellite developers in SA who need launch sites, including Fleet, Myriota and Inovor, and said if a site was developed both rocket and satellite manufacturers would cluster around it.

The other positives for the lower Eyre Peninsula is that it provides a clear pathway over the ocean so no people or property are at risk.

Mr Damp said that the old thinking was that you need to be near the equator to get a boost from the Earth’s spin.

“But what’s changed of late is that satellites can now be made a lot smaller and suddenly they can start to fill a lot of roles that these big satellites historically filled, because they’re so much cheaper.

“You get a cluster, a constellation.”

While other companies have been looking at equatorial launches, Mr Damp is looking at polar orbits, where smaller satellites can observe the entire globe every day.