Black Sky Aerospace

On 21 November 2018, Black Sky Aerospace successfully conducted Australia's first commercial payload rocket launch from the nation's only sub-orbital launch facility west of Goondiwindi in Queensland.[4] This sub-orbital mission utilised a Sighter190 research rocket to carry experimental payloads and instruments to an altitude of approximately 20,000 ft (6,100 m).[5][6]

The minister for state development, manufacturing, infrastructure and planning, Cameron Dick was present to press the launch button.[7]

In September 2019, Black Sky Aerospace was granted approval by regulators to begin manufacturing solid rocket motors.[8] Solid rocket motors (SRM's) are the fuel (propellant) that boosts rockets in to space, such as the boosters on the space shuttle and is the preferred fuel to use by many space launch companies due to its simplicity and cost-effectiveness.[9] The company will be the first manufacturer of its kind in Australia and will be able to provide access to solid fuels for orbital and sub-orbital launch vehicles.

In October 2019, Black Sky Aerospace gained priority access to the new Equatorial Launch Australia (ELA) Arnhem Space Centre near Nhulunbuy in the Northern Territory.[10] BSA director Blake Nikolic said priority access to the Arnhem Space Centre would provide his customers with the benefits of launching close to the equator.[11]

Equatorial Launch Australia operates the Arnhem Space Centre and as of 2019, planned to host NASA's first launch from a foreign non-government-owned site.[11] The launch, of an astrophysics-oriented sounding rocket, successfully occurred on the morning of 27 June 2022, with a second scheduled for 4 July, and a third later in the month.[12][13]