SpaceX launches classified Optus satellite for ADF

Elon Musk’s SpaceX has launched a secret communications satellite for the Australian Defence Force just weeks after the Albanese government cancelled a $7bn military space program.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket on the launch pad at the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida, before launching an Optus satellite into orbit for the Australian Defence Force. Inset: Elon Musk. Picture: SpaceX/AFP

Elon Musk’s SpaceX has launched a secret communications satellite for the Australian Defence Force, weeks after the Albanese government cancelled a $7bn military space program.

SpaceX sent the Optus satellite into orbit on one of its Falcon 9 rockets on Tuesday (AEDT), cutting its video feed of the launch “at the customer’s request” before the payload was deployed.

US space industry media sites said the “secretive military communications satellite” was headed into geostationary orbit some 36,000km above earth – the same orbit Defence Minister Richard Marles recently warned was now vulnerable to anti-satellite weapons.

“SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 rocket at sunset with a payload that has been shrouded in secrecy to the point of not disclosing any specifics of the mission, and not using its original name,” Spaceflight Now reported.

The satellite was launched under an opaque $405m contract between Defence and Optus signed in 2022.

A Defence spokeswoman said the satellite was “an important element of Defence’s assured access to space-enabled communications” and would “complement our future multi-orbit satellite capabilities”.

The launch caught Australian space experts by surprise. Flinders University space expert Joel Lisk said: “It’s all very secretive, which is interesting. National security satellites are inevitably clouded in some degree of confidentiality.”

Dr Lisk said the value of the Optus contract was not big enough to suggest the launch was a replacement for the planned military-grade satellite program cancelled this month.

Defence analyst Bec Shrimpton said she believed it was related to an existing military satellite service provided to the ADF.

“Yes it is highly secretive; yes it’s no doubt classified,” Ms Shrimpton said. “That will be because it is supporting a military capability.”

The satellite was dubbed by US media as Optus-X after the term was used by the US Federal Aviation Administration in its flight schedule. Optus declined to provide further details.

“Optus has procured a spacecraft on behalf of another organisation,” a spokesman said. “We respect the privacy of our customers and do not provide comment on these matters.”

The Australian revealed on November 4 that the government had axed the nation’s biggest space program – a military-grade satellite network that was to have been delivered by US defence giant Lockheed Martin. The program, known as JP9102, would have put three to five satellites into geostationary orbit to connect all of the ADF’s capabilities in real time.

The government said it would instead pursue a multi-orbit system, which would include low-earth orbit satellites like those used by Mr Musk’s Starlink network.

Mr Marles said the government had decided to go with a more “resilient” option, because “we do see capabilities which enable satellites to literally be shot out of the sky”. His comments were met with scepticism in the space sector, with experts privately arguing geostationary satellites were the gold standard for military use and were far safer than those closer to earth.