Australian Launch Sites
In 1967, Australia became the seventh nation to launch a satellite, and the third nation to launch one from its own territory. The Weapons Research Establishment Satellite (WRESAT) was launched into a near-polar orbit on 29 November 1967 from the Woomera Test Range in South Australia. The Sparta rocket (a modified American Redstone rocket with two upper stages) was donated by the US having been left over from the joint Australian-US-UK Sparta program.
In recent times, three new launch sites have been established in Australia.
Equatorial Launch Australia (ELA) is based at the Arnhem Space Centre site, approximately 12°S, outside the township of Nhulunbuy in the Northern Territory. Launch facilities will include pads for small sub-orbital, LEO and GEO orbital, and deep space missions. ELA’s first three launches were planned for NASA for 2019 but were delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic until June and July 2022. As of late 2024, Equatorial Launch Australia announced that it had ceased operations at the Arnhem Space Centre due to unresolved land-lease and approval issues and has since commenced planning to relocate its spaceport activities to an alternative site in Cape York, Queensland.
Gilmour Space Technologies is a venture capital-backed rocket company based on the Gold Coast in Queensland that is developing new launch vehicles powered by lower-cost hybrid propulsion technologies. Gilmour received in 2024 an orbital launch facility license for a site at Abbot Point, which is just north of Bowen, Queensland. At 20°S, the site still offers a take-off velocity of 437 ms-1 compared with 465 ms-1 at the Equator. The first rocket is planned to be launched from the proposed facility in late 2024.
Southern Launch is a launch service provider headquartered in Adelaide, South Australia on the Eyre Peninsular. Southern Launch facilities include the Whalers Way Orbital Launch Complex on the tip of Eyre Peninsular near Port Lincoln, and the Koonibba Test Range in Western Wyre Peninsular near Ceduna, a suborbital testing facility. Southern Launch plans on 40 launches a year when fully operational.