Touch down: Queensland space company lands in Adelaide
South Australia’s growing space ecosystem has landed a coup, with a major interstate rocket ship builder the latest to set up in town.
Queensland-based Gilmour Space Technologies has opened an Adelaide office at Lot Fourteen’s Defence and Space Landing Pad.
It is the latest win for the startup and scaleup hub’s growing ambitions to be a major Australian space centre, with Gilmour joining more than 20 national and international space and defence companies.
Gilmour Space was founded in 2013 by brothers Adam and James Gilmour who had dreams of building Australia’s first space rockets.
In July last year, the company was the first to launch an Australian-based orbital launch vehicle from Australian soil at the company’s facility at Bowen in north Queensland.
The Eris rocket achieved 14 seconds of flight before quickly crashing back down to the ground. Despite the setback, Gilmour Space heralded the launch as a “success”, “Getting off the pad and into flight is a huge step forward for any new rocket program”, Adam said.
Most recently, the company cracked the billion-dollar valuation milestone after securing $127 million in new funding to expand its launch capabilities, including money from the Australian government’s investment fund.
Gilmour Space head of mission management Matthew Congedi, who will be the company’s first employee based in Adelaide, said South Australia was a “key player” in the country’s emerging space and defence sectors.
“This strongly complements the sovereign launch and satellite manufacturing capabilities we are building at Gilmour Space,” he said.
“Lot Fourteen brings together the Australian Space Agency, leading universities, emerging space startups and established defence companies.
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“Having a presence at the Defence and Space Landing Pad helps us to collaborate more effectively and stay connected to the ideas, talent and opportunities shaping Australia’s future in space.”
It is hoped that Gilmour Space would collaborate with other businesses at Lot Fourteen, like global defence giants Kongsberg, Egis and L3 Harris, which all used the Landing Pad to establish permanent operations in SA.
South Australian Artificial Intelligence, Digital Economy, Defence and Space Industries Assistant Minister Michael Brown said Gilmour Space’s presence at Lot Fourteen would create “new opportunities for partnerships with local companies, researchers and the Australian Space Agency”.
“It is exactly the kind of growth we want to see as we continue to build a strong, sustainable and competitive space sector in South Australia,” Brown said.
