Equatorial Launch Australia (ELA)
Equatorial Launch Australia (ELA) is based at the Arnhem Space Centre, located in Arnhem Land at approximately 12° S latitude, around 40 km east of the township of Nhulunbuy in Australia’s Northern Territory. The site offers advantageous access to equatorial and low-inclination launch trajectories over the Arafura Sea.
The Arnhem Space Centre is designed to support multiple launch pads for small sub-orbital and orbital launch vehicles, with a focus on LEO missions; support for higher-energy missions (including GEO transfer and deep-space trajectories) is dependent on vehicle capability and regulatory approvals rather than being intrinsic to the site itself.
Three sub-orbital sounding rockets were successfully launched on 26 June, 6 July, and 12 July 2022, marking: the first NASA launches from Australia since 1995, and the first commercial orbital-class rocket launches conducted from Australian territory.
More than 70 NASA personnel travelled to Arnhem Land to support the campaign, which carried scientific payloads for astrophysics and heliophysics research as well as engineering validation experiments. Each mission achieved approximately 5–20 minutes of sub-orbital flight time above the Kármán line. Launch vehicles and payload hardware were transported to site by barge, and post-flight recovery and cleaning of casings and instruments were conducted prior to return to the United States.
The NT government co-invested $5 million into the launch in conjunction with private investors including Blackfyre Holding, Paspalis Innovation Investment Fund, and Greenwich Capital.
Following the 2022 NASA campaign, ELA has continued to develop the site and pursue additional launch customers. While early planning envisaged up to 50 launches per year, this figure should be regarded as a long-term aspirational capacity rather than an operational baseline.
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.