HELENSVALE, Queensland (CU)_Gilmour Space Technologies is a venture-based rocket company headquartered in Helensvale, a suburb of the City of Gold Coast in Queensland. Last week, the firm conducted a test fire, running a hybrid rocket engine for about 75 seconds at a site near Toowoomba. The rocket fired at full thrust of 110 kilonewtons, the most powerful in Australia’s history according to Gilmour Space.
“We got almost to where we wanted to go and qualified enough things to be very happy with the test,” the company’s Chief executive Adam Gilmour said. “It’s a very powerful rocket motor and [tested for] a duration that’s close to the flight duration we will need to be able to go to space. For us, it was a significant test.”
Accordingly, Gilmour Space is set to launch its first rocket later this year, sending bushfire-detection satellites, among other uses. “We’re very much hoping to have our first vehicle ready to launch in the second half of this year and definitely on track to do that,” Gilmour noted. He pointed out that the rocket must burn for 90 to 100 seconds, although the company’s recent test fire was cut short after concerns a sensor was getting too hot.
“We basically stopped the test because we had a sensor on there that was recording a higher temperature than we were comfortable with,” he said. “But we subsequently found out the sensor wasn’t embedded properly, so we could have gone longer. So, we actually think that we’re not going to have to make a lot of changes to keep it going longer.”
Once complete, the Australian-made rockets will be able to launch satellites into low-Earth and other orbits. They could be used to improve phone or internet coverage, help fertilise crops and even detect bushfires. “We want to be taking up other people’s satellites that give broadband internet access from space, which means that you can go anywhere in Australia — anywhere outside of Australia on a boat in the middle of the ocean and still be able to get broadband internet quickly and very affordably,” Gilmour said. “That’s another big game changer.”
