Meet Gilmour Space Technologies – the Aussie company aiming to launch a rocket into space in 2022
by Sharon Masige
- Queensland-based company Gilmour Space Technologies is planning to launch a rocket into space in 2022.
- The company was founded in 2003 and designs technology that sends satellites into space.
- Co-founder Adam Gilmour outlined some of the company’s plans to Business Insider Australia.
- Visit Business Insider Australia’s homepage for more stories.
Gilmour Space Technologies plans to launch a rocket into space in 2022.
The Gold Coast-based company was founded in 2013 and develops technology to launch satellites into space.
Cofounder and CEO Adam Gilmour told Business Insider Australia he had been a banker for 20 years before developing an interest in space in around 2004.
“One of the things a lot of bankers do is they look at what industries are emerging [and] who is declining,” he said. “And space, back in 2005 to 2010, was looking like it was becoming a big new industry.”
After his interest in space temporarily got “sidetracked” by the global financial crisis, Gilmour found his way back and researched opportunities in the industry. That’s when he landed on the idea of launch technologies, essentially, rockets.
“Launch became quite an obvious standout because it underpinned everything in space,” he said. “Access to space was a bottleneck then and it still is a bottleneck now and that’s when I started researching on launch vehicles and put a plan together to make one.”
Gilmour Space Technologies creates rockets that are “not huge” but big enough to take small, bar-fridge sized satellites into space. And these satellites have a range of uses, from broadband internet to looking at the Great Barrier Reef to assessing water levels on farms.
The company’s first stage is to take these satellites into orbit, with further plans to eventually take them to the moon. And after that?
“Then eventually we want to take people into space as well,” Gilmour said.
Launching a satellite into space
Gilmour Space Technologies is planning to launch its first rocket into low earth orbit in 2022.
On Wednesday, the company announced that it secured its first Australian launch customer, Space Machines Company. It means cargo from Space Machines Company will be launched from the rocket.
“They’re working on a satellite that has this propulsion system on it that can start moving small satellites around in space once you get there,” Gilmour explained.
Space Machines Company will be getting bigger satellites into space.
“So far in Australia, all the satellites that have gone into space have been really tiny,” Gilmour said. “They’ve been literally the size of a shoebox and that’s okay, but it doesn’t give you a lot of really good capability that a bigger satellite does.
“So we’re very encouraged that Space Machines Company is building a substantially bigger satellite and we think that’s the way the general satellite business has to go.”
There will be two satellites on the rocket when it launches, with Gilmour Space Technologies working with another company to put their satellite on it as well.
While Gilmour Space Technologies is based in the Gold Coast, it’s planning to launch its rocket elsewhere in Australia. It already has a few locations up for consideration.
“One of them’s in Northern Territory, another one’s in South Australia and then the one we’d really like to launch from is up in Far North Queensland,” Gilmour said.
It comes after the Queensland government revealed in July that consultation on the proposed rocket launch site near Abbot Point in North Queensland was going to start.
The proposed launch site could add to Queensland’s goal of having up to 6000 jobs in the space industry by 2036.
Australia’s space sector
Australia is no stranger to space.
The Parkes Observatory in New South Wales was involved in sending live pictures of the walk on the moon to the world back in 1969, Adelaide is home to the Australian Space Agency and Atlassian software was involved in SpaceX’s rocket launch in June.
Queensland also released its Space Industry Strategy which details what the state will do to grow its space industry.
The strategy highlighted that Australia’s space industry generates between $3 billion and $4 billion a year, with Queensland accounting for 20% of Australia’s space-related jobs.
“What’s shaping up quite naturally is that South Australia is the place where satellite technology is developing very well and Queensland is the place where launch technologies is doing very well,” Gilmour said.
Gilmour Space Technologies wants to do 12 launches a year initially, before doubling and even tripling that number later on.
“We want to be a regular, reliable service into space so people can know [that] every month we’re going to launch.”
And while Gilmour believes Australia’s space industry is “still reasonably in its early stages”, he said there is plenty of opportunity.
“There’s already quite a number of successful Australian space companies around and they are growing and doing very well,” he said. “I think this is going to become a very big industry in the future.”