Gilmour Space Technologies

Gilmour Space Technologies is attempting three hard things at once in Queensland: building rockets, building satellites, and running the spaceport they launch from. Brothers Adam and James Gilmour started the company in 2013 on the Gold Coast, and it now works from a 10,000 square metre advanced manufacturing facility at Yatala with roughly 200 staff. Engines, tanks and satellite structures are built under one roof, which is unusual for a launch company at this stage and is central to how the founders argue the cost case. Vertical integration shortens the supplier list. Funding has come through successive venture rounds led by Blackbird Ventures, Main Sequence Ventures and Fine Structure Ventures, with Australian superannuation money from Hostplus, HESTA and Australian Retirement Trust alongside the Queensland Investment Corporation and the National Reconstruction Fund.

Launch is the headline business. Eris Block 1 is a three-stage small-lift vehicle about 25 metres tall with a 1.5 metre fairing, designed to place up to around 300 kilograms into low Earth orbit or 215 kilograms into a 500 kilometre sun-synchronous orbit, on dedicated or rideshare missions. The first two stages use clustered Sirius hybrid engines, burning a solid fuel with a liquid oxidiser, an architecture that keeps throttling and restart while avoiding the plumbing of a full liquid stage. The third stage uses Phoenix, a regeneratively cooled liquid engine that is 3D printed and was developed to raise the payload available to defence customers. Eris TestFlight1 lifted off from Bowen in July 2025 and failed after about 14 seconds, ending Australia's first sovereign orbital launch attempt in more than fifty years, with a second vehicle now in preparation.

Satellites are the second business. ElaraSat is a 100 kilogram modular multi-mission bus carrying up to 72U of payload volume, built on the Gold Coast and designed to fly on Eris or on other launchers. It hosts payloads of up to 30 kilograms and was built for compatibility with a range of launch vehicles rather than only the company's own. ElaraSat MMS-1 went up on a SpaceX Transporter rideshare in June 2025 and is operating in orbit. Gilmour has since been contracted to build and launch a prototype surveillance satellite for Defence, and integrates customer payloads through the Australian Space Manufacturing Network facility in Queensland.

The third piece is the Bowen Orbital Spaceport at Abbot Point, licensed in 2024 as Australia's first orbital launch facility and owned and operated by Gilmour, with access to low and mid inclination orbits. Holding the launch licence, the vehicle and the satellite bus inside one company is a deliberate bet. The argument the founders make is that a sovereign space capability counts for little if any of those three links sits offshore, and the certifications the company has accumulated, from ISO 9001 through JOSCAR-AU and Australian Trusted Trader status, are aimed squarely at defence and government buyers who care about that.