Wellington, New Zealand (AP) – first Australian -Prust Rocket After 14 seconds flight on Wednesday to try to reach the classroom from the soil of the country.
Rocket Eris, launched by Gilmer Space Technologies, was the first Australian-designed and built orbital launch vehicle to get up from the country and was designed to take small satellites to classroom. The local time was launched on a test flight from a spaceport near the small town of Bowen north of the state of Queensland on Wednesday morning.
In a video published by Australian news outlets, 23-meter (75-foot) rockets appeared to clean the launch tower and looked into the air before falling out of the sight. The plum of the smoke was seen rising above the site.
There was no injury.
The company started launching as a success in a statement posted on Facebook. A spokesperson said that all four hybrid-propelized engines were ignited and the first flight included 23 second engine burn time and 14 seconds flight.
Gilmer Space Technologies had planned the previous launch of the rocket earlier this month and earlier this month, but stopped those tasks due to technical issues and bad weather.
CEO Adam Gilmar said in a statement that he was happy that the rocket got down from the launchpad.
“Of course I must have liked more flight time, but is happy,” he wrote on LinkedIn. Gilmar said in February that it was “almost unheard” for a private rocket company to successfully launch in its first attempt.
The firm had earlier said that if the rocket comes out of the ground, it would consider making the launch a success. The statement said that the launch site infrastructure “retained”.
Local Whitsunday Regional Council Mayor Ry Collins said the full launch was a “huge achievement”, even if the vehicles did not reach the classroom.
He wrote on Facebook, “This is an important first step towards the vast leap of the future commercial space industry in our region.”
Gilmer Space Technologies have private funds and were awarded a 5 million Australian dollars ($ 3.2 million) grant from the federal government of the country for the development of Eris Rockets. It followed the AU $ 52 million grant agreement with the government in 2023 to carry forward the development and commercialization of new space technologies in Australia.
According to the aerospace news platform Nasasapasflight, the country is a site of hundreds of suborobital vehicle launch, but only two successful launch before Australia. The girl Aris Test flight was the first orbital launch attempt from Australia in more than 50 years.
Charlotte Graham-Mack, Associated Press
