In a surprise announcement, the launch firm said the fresh decision would give it a “longer, more flexible launch window” and allow its team to rest “after an intense few weeks of testing and prep”.
However, it also added that it’s now targeting a lift-off next week, depending on weather and obtaining a green light from regulators.
Gilmour initially planned a launch on 15 May, but that date was cancelled due to a power surge that triggered a fault on the rocket’s carbon-fibre nose cone.
That attempt itself came after a string of previous delays, including disruption caused by Tropical Cyclone Alfred and trouble obtaining the necessary permits from the Australian Space Agency. Founder Adam Gilmour, though, said all previous issues had been fixed ahead of a planned second attempt on 1 July.
Eris is a three-stage orbital vehicle and the first to be almost entirely Australian-designed and manufactured. The launch would mark one of the most significant moments in the local sector’s history and the first attempt at an orbital blast-off in 50 years from Australian soil.
Gilmour has repeatedly said the initial blast-off of Eris is likely to end in failure and admitted that a flight time of 20 or 30 seconds would be “fantastic”.
Separately, the company also revealed that its first satellite bus is operating as expected following its launch on SpaceX’s Transporter 14 rideshare mission last week.
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While engineers were initially warned that it could take up to four days to establish contact with ElaraSat, they eventually received the all-clear within eight hours.
“The fact that we can put it up in a space successfully and test it will be a big milestone for the company,” Gilmour said.
The 100-kilogram satellite platform is carrying a hyperspectral imager from CSIRO that can monitor algae in Queensland’s rivers and lakes.
The successful mission means the company joins Fleet, Inovor, Space Machines Company, and Skykraft in locally building satellite or satellite buses (effectively the fuselage or main body of the spacecraft).
In total, Transporter 14 carried 70 payloads to a sun-synchronous orbit, including CubeSats, Microsats, re-entry capsules and orbital transfer vehicles.
The launch took place via a Falcon 9 from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California, while other local payloads included the next Varda capsule set to touch down in South Australia and RASCube-1, a platform for operating student experiments.
The previous mission, Transporter-13, carried the second of Defence’s Buccaneer satellites, designed to fine-tune the performance of a RAAF radar, as well as the previous Varda capsule.
Adam Thorn
Adam is a journalist who has worked for more than 40 prestigious media brands in the UK and Australia. Since 2005, his varied career has included stints as a reporter, copy editor, feature writer and editor for publications as diverse as Fleet Street newspaper The Sunday Times, fashion bible Jones, media and marketing website Mumbrella as well as lifestyle magazines such as GQ, Woman’s Weekly, Men’s Health and Loaded. He joined Momentum Media in early 2020 and currently writes for Australian Aviation and World of Aviation.
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