ELA chief executive Carley Scott told the ABC that the project remained on track, and that the firm was planning to potentially have a rocket in the air by this year's tropical dry season."We're looking to ideally have a small rocket launched this year, in 2019, and bring the community along for that journey," said Ms Scott, who would not yet reveal an exact timeframe for blast-off.
The chosen site's isolated location — a wide, bushy plateau not far from the site of the annual Garma Festival at Gulkula and about an hour's drive from Nhulunbuy — adds to its viability, Ms Scott said."You're actually looking at a region that has been really strongly benefitted by the history of mining as far as overcoming some of those hurdles that are associated with having a remote area," she said."You have a deep water port that's already there, a city-quality airport, the strong township of Nhulunbuy and nearby communities … you have some really important infrastructure that has already been established."
"There's a lease now in place for ELA to proceed," she said
An interesting read in the news today: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-04-30/how-viable-is-plan-to-build-spaceport-remote-northern-territory/10970060
At the heart of the Government's current aspiration is its support for a private industry project — a spaceport to launch suborbital satellites being built on Aboriginal-owned land in East Arnhem Land.
QuoteAt the heart of the Government's current aspiration is its support for a private industry project — a spaceport to launch suborbital satellites being built on Aboriginal-owned land in East Arnhem Land.It's also worth noting that the launch site's orbital launch azimuths all overfly land. Indonesia to the north, PNG to the northeast, Cape York Peninsula to the east. To me, this is smelling more and more like a boondoggle.
I believe ELA already has launch contracts from NASA to fly four suborbital missions in May 2020. That's a good start.
The launches are in the WFF Bluebook, although only three launches are listed now launching July/August 2020.
NASA will launch commercial rockets from an Australian spaceport in the Northern Territory next year after an Australian startup secured a contract with the space agency.NASA will work with Equatorial Launch Australia (ELA) to launch rockets into space from the startup's Arnhem Space Centre in 2020."It's a first for NASA and a first for Australia," said ELA chief executive Carley Scott. "NASA has never ever before contracted a commercial site to do a launch."
NASA Inspects Proposed NT Space BaseMax Blenkin2 August 2019NASA has conducted a site inspection of the area of the Northern Territory from which it plans to launch a series of sounding rockets.https://www.spaceconnectonline.com.au/r-d/3609-nasa-inspects-proposed-nt-space-base
Gumatj chief executive Klaus Helms told the ABC he wanted to get started."We hope that within this year I'd like to be able to put the roads in and start a clearing, if all the applications come through," Helms said. He said the involvement of NASA helped move the space centre plan into reality."It needed a kickstart, and this is a very good kickstart to get it going," Helms said."If it goes ahead, we've got the building of the roads, the building of the infrastructure, we've got the delivery of water, the delivery of fuel, we've got communications, security; there's a multitude of jobs."ELA chose this location for its launch site as it has significant advantages, including its remoteness and proximity to the equator, which takes advantage of the Earth’s rotation and allows greater launch payloads for less fuel.While the NASA scientists visited the proposed ELA launch site, the main purpose of their visit was educational – to talk to local high school students about the booming space sector. Among schools visited was the Nhulunbuy High School, the closest to the new space base.