Why 2024 is a make or break year for Australia's nascent space tech sector
A maiden rocket launch for Queensland-based Gilmour Space Technologies could mean liftoff for a growing cohort of Australian space tech companies already punching above their weight.
When COVID lockdowns ended, a planet’s worth of housebound people were freed to travel the world. Ticket prices shot up, but that didn’t deter many. The constraint was the number of airlines that could ferry customers around the globe.
It’s not so different for companies building spacecraft that can launch people, satellites and cargo into orbit, says Gilmour Space Technologies co-founder Adam Gilmour. There’s an immense backlog of gear ready to be sent into space, and only a handful of companies for the job.
In 2024, he intends for Gilmour Space Technologies to become one of them. Founded in 2013, the Queensland-based company has plans to launch its first rocket in February. Success would make Gilmour Space Technologies part of a very select group of private companies to be actively sending spacecraft into space.
“The others are pretty well known, pretty famous and very highly valued,” he told Capital Brief. “So any which way you slice it, the first test is a pretty big deal.”
