Gold Coast space industry: Gilmour Space Technologies signs deal with European company
A Gold Coast company has signed a major deal with a European industry leader which is set to make it cheaper to put rockets into space.
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A GOLD Coast company’s plan to launch a satellite into space within 18 months has secured a major boost.
Pimpama-based Gilmour Space Technologies has signed a long-term collaboration and supply deal with a European company which could build its rockets.
The deal, with global launch industry supplier RUAG Space, is an Australian first and will explore the use of the company’s carbon composition products on the hybrid rockets.
“RUAG Space has a long history of providing reliable launch technologies for rockets like the Ariane 5, Vega and Atlas,” said Gilmour Space CEO Adam Gilmour.
“With this collaboration, we look to leverage on their proven expertise while lowering our launcher development costs and time to market.”
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The Coast company is planning to launch small satellites weighing up to 100kg into low earth orbits from 2020, and up to 400kg from 2021.
RUAG Space’s Holger Wentscher said he was excited by the Australian industry’s progress.
“It has been very exciting to see the progress that Gilmour Space and Australia have made in the space domain since we first met at the International Astronautical Congress in Adelaide last year,” he said.
“We look forward to collaborating with them in their goal to provide lower cost access to space from Australia.”
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The deal comes as the company prepares to pitch at least one potential space mission to the Australian Space Agency (ASA) in a bid to help chart the nation’s course to the stars.
At a cost of $30 million and over a mission period of four to five years, the company has proposed doing at least one of the following missions:
* A fly-by or orbit of a near-earth object such as an asteroid.
* A solar sail-powered mission to the moon.
* A solar sail mission to Phobos, Mars’s largest moon.
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The company’s pitch to the ASA is that the missions would develop technology and “unlock the space industry’s multi-trillion dollar potential’’.
Earlier this year the Gilmours received a $19 million funding boost, which the company will use to further develop its low-cost rockets and launch vehicles to send small to medium-sized satellites into orbit.
A conference of space industry scientists was told last month Australia’s space industry would be worth $12 billion by 2030.
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