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Launch of Australia's 1st homegrown orbital rocket delayed indefinitely due to payload fairing issue

a rocket stands on a launch pad at sunset

Gilmour Space Technologies' first Eris rocket stands on the launch pad in north Queensland. (Image credit: Gilmour Space Technologies)

We'll have to wait a bit longer for the first-ever launch of an Australian orbital rocket.

Queensland-based company Gilmour Space had aimed to debut its Eris rocket today (May 15), but a problem with the vehicle's payload fairing scuttled that plan.

"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," Gilmour Space said via X this afternoon.

"We'll send a replacement fairing from our Gold Coast factory after a full investigation. That means we’re standing down from this test campaign to investigate and fix. A new date for TestFlight1 will be announced once ready. Ad Astra (PS: Vegemite payload = safe : )," Gilmour wrote in a second post. Vegemite, for the uninitiated, is a salty brown yeast paste that Australians love to spread on toast.

Gilmour Space Technologies, founded by the brothers Adam and James Gilmour, began its rocket program in 2015.

The company has been busy over the past decade. For example, it developed the 82-foot-tall (25-meter-tall) Eris and built a private launch site on the coast of northern Queensland, called the Bowen Orbital Spaceport, with the goal of making Australia more of a space player.

"Launching Australian-owned and controlled rockets from home soil means more high-tech jobs, greater security, economic growth, and technological independence," Adam Gilmour, the company's CEO, said in a statement in February.

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The upcoming test flight will be the first for both Eris and the spaceport. And it will be historic in another way, marking the first-ever liftoff of an Australian-built orbital rocket.

Full success is a rarity for rockets making their debut, so Gilmour Space is setting its TestFlight1 expectations at a reasonable level.

"Whether we make it off the pad, reach max Q, or get all the way to space, what's important is that every second of flight will deliver valuable data that will improve our rocket's reliability and performance for future launches," Adam Gilmour said in the same statement.

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Michael Wall is a Senior Space Writer with Space.com and joined the team in 2010. He primarily covers exoplanets, spaceflight and military space, but has been known to dabble in the space art beat. His book about the search for alien life, "Out There," was published on Nov. 13, 2018. Before becoming a science writer, Michael worked as a herpetologist and wildlife biologist. He has a Ph.D. in evolutionary biology from the University of Sydney, Australia, a bachelor's degree from the University of Arizona, and a graduate certificate in science writing from the University of California, Santa Cruz. To find out what his latest project is, you can follow Michael on Twitter.

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