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  1. Premature fairing release cancels first launch of Gilmour’s Eris rocket

    The Australian rocket startup has canceled any attempt to launch its Eris rocket during its present launch window as a result of the premature fairing release that occurred during the countdown yesterday. Last night, during final checks, an unexpected issue triggered the rocket’s payload fairing. No fuel was loaded, no one was hurt, and early inspections show no damage to the rocket or pad. While investigating the cause of this incident, the company will ship and install a replacement fairing from its factory. A new launch date will be announced after these actions are completed. Expect a delay of at least two months, likely more.

  2. Gilmour scrubs launch attempt today

    The Australian rocket startup Gilmour Space has scrubbed its first attempt to launch its Eris rocket from its own Bowen spaceport on the eastern coast of Australia. Our team identified an issue in the ground support system during overnight checks. We’re now in an extended hold to work through it. Our next target is the Friday morning launch window. The company has a two week launch window extending through the end of the month. If it can’t launch in that window then it will try again in the second half of June, assuming the bureaucracy of the Australian Space Agency issues a revised licence. It took that government three years to issue this license, so assuming it will work quickly to issue a revision is a dangerous thing. The company is not providing a live stream of the launch, though it has said it will release a full video after the fact.

    Gilmour Space scrubs Australia’s first homegrown orbital launch with Eris rocket

    Gilmour Space Technologies has been performing final system checks before launching its homegrown Eris rocket. The vehicle was poised to become the first orbital launch from Australian soil by a sovereign-built vehicle when it made its debut this week, but the company has stood down from this test campaign for the time being. The company reported that an unexpected issue triggered the rocket’s payload fairing during overnight checks. A replacement will be dispatched from the company’s Gold Coast facility following an investigation. The anomaly occurred before any fuel was loaded, and Gilmour Space reports that there is no damage to the rocket or the pad. The Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) had approved the company’s maiden flight in late April, which Gilmour Space announced on May 4. A final sign-off from the Australian Space Agency was approved on May 13 and, following the identification of an issue in the ground support system during overnight checks, the launch attempt had been moved 24 hours to the right, opening no earlier than than 7:30 AM AEST on May 16 (21:30 UTC on May 15) prior to this anomaly. The Bowen Orbital Spaceport is Australia’s first licensed commercial orbital launch facility. (Credit: Gilmour Space) As with the SaxaVord site in the UK, regulatory approvals can be complicated and long-winded, especially for new launch sites. The Gold Coast-based company was granted a provisional launch permit last November and had previously intended to launch in mid-March. This was the first orbital launch permit issued by the space agency. While some regulatory paperwork remained outstanding, the preparations to launch were then delayed by Tropical Cyclone Alfred, which moved into the area. A small team of 25 staff had been sent in advance of this month’s launch to the company’s Bowen Orbital Spaceport at Abbot Point, north of the coastal town of Bowen. They had completed a launch readiness review for the debut mission, dubbed “TestFlight 1.” The picturesque site affords 20 to 65-degree, low to mid-inclination equatorial orbits. The spaceport was developed in agreement with the Juru traditional custodians of the land in late 2021 and officially opened last April. Proudly “Australian-made” and bearing the country’s flag on its upper stages, Eris is a three-stage rocket. Comparable to Rocket Lab’s Electron, it stands a little taller than Electron at 25 m in height. The vehicle also has a slightly larger 1.5 m fairing and boasts a payload mass of up to 215 kg to a 500 km Sun-synchronous orbit, or 305 kg to 500 km equatorial orbits. Sirius hybrid engine qualification testing. (Credit: Gilmour Space) The first stage is propelled by four Sirius engines — a proprietary hybrid engine that uses a 3D-printed solid fuel grain and a Hydrogen Peroxide liquid oxidizer. The additive manufacturing approach allows for complex geometries within the grain, designed to optimize the fuel’s burn characteristics and improve engine performance. Another single Sirius engine powers the second stage, while the third uses a Phoenix engine, which burns liquid propellants. A successful orbital launch would also be the first for a hybrid rocket design. Both the vehicles and their engines are manufactured in-house, with expanded use of 3D printing. Gilmour Space selected EOS as its additive manufacturing partner in late 2023 as it transitioned beyond the prototyping stage. TestFlight 1 will be the first orbital launch from Australian soil in over 50 years. Eris will fly on a northeasterly trajectory over the Coral Sea and hopes to reach low-Earth orbit (LEO) on its first attempt. Eris is transported horizontally at Bowen Orbital Spaceport. (Credit: Gilmour Space) To date, only two successful orbital launches have been conducted from Australia, the first of which took flight from the Woomera Test Range in South Australia in November 1967, when the nation’s first satellite was lofted atop a modified Redstone rocket. The launch of the Weapons Research Establishment Satellite (WRESAT) mission established Australia as the third country to launch a satellite into orbit from its own territory, following the Soviet Union and the United States. The United Kingdom’s Black Arrow then successfully launched the Prospero satellite into orbit from Woomera four years later in October 1971. See Also Eris TestFlight 1 Updates Commercial Spaceflight Section NSF Store Click Here to Join L2 Since then, Australia has launched hundreds of suborbital missions, including sounding rockets for NASA missions from the Arnhem Space Centre in the Northern Territory and many others from the Whalers Way Orbital Launch Complex and Koonibba Test Range. The latter supported the launch of German company HyImpulse’s SR75 last May — another vehicle that utilizes hybrid propulsion and proprietary fuel grains. Gilmour Space also builds its own satellites, and the company’s 100 kg modular ElaraSat bus is capable of delivering 72U of payload to orbit. The bus was selected by Perth-based LatConnect60 for a forthcoming demonstration mission that will use the short-wave infrared range to provide insights into methane and carbon emissions from space. This particular prototype satellite will be integrated in Gilmour Space’s Queensland facility, but then launched by Skyroot Aerospace in India. Gilmour Space’s first suborbital launch of the RASTA Mk2 occurred nine years ago in July 2016. The flight demonstrated the company’s hybrid engine technology for the first time and was notable for being among the first of its kind to use a 3D-printed fuel grain. The company is now offering its commercial and defense customers a suborbital test flight service, which will deliver payloads at hypersonic speeds in excess of Mach 5 — more than five times the speed of sound. This HyPeRsonic FLight Test (HPRFLT) service addresses the growing demand for the prototyping and testing of high-speed vehicles and materials, going beyond what ground-based tunnel testing and simulations can provide. Render of Eris in Block 1 configuration (Credit: Gilmour Space) A second Eris vehicle is already being built, incorporating some design improvements that could be further refined based on the results of the maiden flight. Further along the roadmap, Gilmour Space is planning for a Block 2 version of the vehicle that will feature higher performance, making Eris more akin to Firefly Aerospace’s Alpha vehicle. This version will deliver up to 1,000 kg to LEO and will be used for the company’s Caravan-1 rideshare mission. A medium-lift Eris Heavy is also planned, capable of lofting up to 4,000 kg to LEO and potentially even crew capsules. Gilmour Space has several commercial agreements in place for future missions with operators of orbital transfer vehicles (OTV). The company signed its first European partnership agreement with rideshare specialist Exolaunch almost four years ago, which would give it access to low-inclination missions and unique orbits. The company also signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) in February 2023 with Atomos Space. Through this MOU, Atomos will contract launch services aboard Eris. At the same time, the vehicle will also carry Atomos’ OTVs in the future, offering customers additional in-space transportation and orbit-raising services. View of the Eris rocket on the pad at the spaceport in Bowen, Australia. (Credit: Gilmour Space) Australia’s Department of Defence also contracted with Gilmour Space in 2022 to develop and launch a new G-class sovereign surveillance satellite — part of the government’s increased investment in space capabilities. A future all-Australian mission will additionally send two Mayla thermal infrared cameras to orbit. These were developed by Australian Astronomical Optics (AAO) at Macquarie University. Rather than develop space-grade cameras from scratch, the team has successfully modified an off-the-shelf camera for use in space. Potential applications of this space-based heat-detecting technology include the detection of bushfires. New Zealand-based Frond Space Systems is supplying a lightweight and compact MICRO dragsail for Gilmour Space’s forthcoming MMS-1 satellite mission. This dragsail will be attached to a 100 kg microsatellite and will activate at the end of its five-year operational lifespan, accelerating its deorbit as part of the company’s commitment to the sustainable utilization of space. Eris stands vertical against a scenic sky (Credit: Gilmour Space) As with many new launch vehicles, the path to Eris’s debut launch has been longer than initially projected. The inaugural Eris rocket was fully integrated and moved into its vertical launch position in April 2024, and had completed its dress rehearsals before the end of 2024. Eris had been resting horizontally inside the Bowen spaceport’s Vehicle Assembly Building since then. There are no plans to livestream the maiden launch, but the company promises that video will be shared following the launch attempt. For this launch, the company preferred to “limit non-essential network traffic to minimise operational risk”, according to its social media posts. As with SaxaVord’s spaceport, there are no immediate plans for on-site launch viewing. However, this will inevitably follow once the site has supported several launches, bringing an additional boost to the local economy. ??????????? – ???????? Last night, during final checks, an unexpected issue triggered the rocket’s payload fairing. No fuel was loaded, no one was hurt, and early inspections show no damage to the rocket or pad. (1/2) pic.twitter.com/dlqX7sMwsX — Gilmour Space (@GilmourSpace) May 15, 2025   (Lead image: Eris is moved to its vertical position at Bowen Orbital Spaceport. Credit: Gilmour Space) The post Gilmour Space scrubs Australia’s first homegrown orbital launch with Eris rocket appeared first on NASASpaceFlight.com.

    Gilmour finally gets launch license from Australian bureaucrats

    Australia’s commercial spaceports. Click for original map. After several years of delays, the Australian rocket startup Gilmour Space today announced that it has finally been issued a launch license from the Australian Space Agency. According to the company, “pending weather & final system checks, we’re on target for our launch window to open NET May 15.” The launch will take place at Gilmour’s own Bowen spaceport on the east coast of Australia. The Eris rocket has three stages and is designed to launch smallsats similar to Rocket Lab’s Electron rocket. It is amazing this company hasn’t gone bankrupt waiting for this launch license. It applied in 2022, hoping to launch that year. Three years later it finally gets the okay. The amount of cash it had to burn unnecessarily in those years would generally destroy most startups. Whether the red tape in Australia will clear up in the future is decidedly unknown, especially with the election victory this month of the leftist party. Hat tip BtB’s stringer Jay.

    It’s Almost Twenty Years Since The ‘Justice For Pluto’ Movement Began, And Here Is Exactly Why The Dwarf Planet’s Reclassificati

    2005. The year that YouTube was launched, The US Office and The Suite Life Of Zack And Cody premiered, a new Pope was inaugurated, and Canada became the fourth country in the world to officially allow same-sex marriage. And it was also the year that a discovery was made, one year on culminating in Pluto being stripped of its planetary status. Cue outcries in the media and on fledgling social media sites alike. There was a lot of sadness when what was formerly known as the smallest planet in our solar system was reclassified, with “Justice for Pluto” movements sweeping the internet. So why, twenty years ago, did this tiny planet become known in entirely different terms? Well it was all down to an important discovery by a team of astronomers. On January 5th, 2005, a research team discovered a new dwarf planet, which was ultimately named Eris. Due to its size, Eris was an important, newly-discovered player in our solar system. The key message was that Eris was bigger than the dwarf planet that had, until that time, taken last place in our planetary line-up. Though it is orbited by five moons, according to NASA Pluto is only around 1,400 miles wide – or half the width of the US. This shook everything that we knew about our solar system, leading to controversial discussion about whether or not Eris should be included in our classifications, or whether knowledge of this new dwarf planet meant that Pluto was now to head down a different path and join a new grouping altogether. So why was the latter option chosen? Because soon after, other dwarf planets were discovered too. Our technology had improved to such an extent that a whole group of new dwarf planets were identified, taking the new planet count up to five. This caused a headache for space experts, who ultimately decided that Pluto should be grouped with its dwarf planet brethren, rather than keeping its planetary title. At a meeting of the International Astronomical Union on August 24th, 2006, scientists explained that, since other dwarf planets had been discovered in a region called the Kuiper Belt, the definition of what constitutes a planet would be redefined as something that orbits its host star, is mostly round, and influences the orbital stability of other objects in space. Meanwhile, a dwarf planet does not have significant pull, as the IAU explain: “A dwarf planet is an object in orbit around the Sun that is large enough to pull itself into a nearly round shape but has not been able to clear its orbit of debris. Generally, dwarf planets are smaller than Mercury. A dwarf planet may also orbit in a zone that has many other objects in it. For example, an object within the asteroid belt is in a zone with many other objects that are all about the same size. Pluto now falls into the dwarf planet category because it resides within a zone of other objects that might cross its orbital path, known as the Trans-Neptunian region.” Thus, along with Pluto, other newly-discovered dwarf planets – including Eris, Ceres, Haumea, and Makemake – were inaugurated as part of this new classification. Though it was a sad day for Pluto fans, perhaps the dwarf planet feels more at home among its counterparts. If you thought that was interesting, you might like to read about a second giant hole has opened up on the sun’s surface. Here’s what it means.

    Webb telescope spots hints that Eris, Makemake are geologically active

    Enlarge / Artist's conceptions of what the surfaces of two dwarf planets might look like. (credit: SWRI) Active geology—and the large-scale chemistry it can drive—requires significant amounts of heat. Dwarf planets near the far edges of the Solar System, like Pluto and other Kuiper Belt objects, formed from frigid, icy materials and have generally never transited close enough to the Sun to warm up considerably. Any heat left over from their formation was likely long since lost to space. Yet Pluto turned out to be a world rich in geological features, some of which implied ongoing resurfacing of the dwarf planet's surface. Last week, researchers reported that the same might be true for other dwarf planets in the Kuiper Belt. Indications come thanks to the capabilities of the Webb telescope, which was able to resolve differences in the hydrogen isotopes found on the chemicals that populate the surface of Eris and Makemake. Cold and distant Kuiper Belt objects are natives of the distant Solar System, forming far enough from the warmth of the Sun that many materials that are gasses in the inner planets—things like nitrogen, methane, and carbon dioxide—are solid ices. Many of these bodies formed far enough from the gravitational influence of the eight major planets that they have never made a trip into the warmer inner Solar System. In addition, because there was much less material that far from the Sun, most of the bodies are quite small. Read 19 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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