Southern Launch

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, and the Koonibba Test Range, a suborbital testing facility. Southern Launch plans on 36 launches a year when fully operational.

In April 2023, the federal government awarded approximately $4.5 million in funding to support Southern Launch and the Koonibba Community Aboriginal Corporation in their joint development of permanent space facilities at the Koonibba Test Range near Ceduna, South Australia. The range is one of the largest commercial rocket testing facilities in the world, allowing companies to recover their rockets and payloads for further testing before subsequently launching them into orbit. A number of missions are contracted to launch from the Koonibba Test Range in early 2024. In April 2023, Space Forge announced that they would both launch and return spacecraft from the Koonibba Test Range.