Gilmour Space's Eris bet: Australia's first orbital rocket flies 14s, crashes

Builds the three-stage Eris rocket for small-satellite launches using in-house hybrid rocket motors, flying from Gilmour's own Bowen Orbital Spaceport in North Queensland.

That an Australian startup can win small-satellite launches by building hybrid rockets and its own spaceport — and treat a 14-second first flight as data, not defeat.

Brothers Adam and James Gilmour founded the company on the Gold Coast in 2015 and spent years building hybrid-propulsion rockets, growing past 200 employees with a local space supply chain. By February 2024 it had raised another $55 million from Blackbird, Main Sequence, Hostplus and HESTA, and was waiting on Australian Space Agency approvals to launch Eris from its own spaceport at Bowen.

The launch window slipped repeatedly — originally expected around May 2024, then postponed through 2024-25 on technical issues and upper-level winds. On July 30, 2025, Eris TestFlight 1 lifted off from Bowen, the first Australian-designed and built orbital-class rocket to launch from Australian soil. About 14 seconds in, after roughly 23 seconds of engine burn, it lost thrust, veered sideways and crashed near the pad. Gilmour reported the team safe, flight software nominal and launch infrastructure intact, and counted tower clearance and stage-1 testing as wins.

Company still running and building the next vehicle; Adam Gilmour framed the crash as a huge step forward and said the next vehicle was already in production, with TestFlight 2 the target as of August 2025.

A new launcher cannot out-spend incumbents, so Gilmour bet on vertical integration: own engines, own spaceport, own supply chain.

Australia had no orbital launch capability, giving the company government and defence demand that foreign rivals could not serve from home soil.

Hybrid motors are simpler and cheaper to develop than liquid turbopumps, but unproven at orbital scale — the core risk of the bet.

Counting the first flight as data collection rather than delivery kept morale and capital flowing after a crash.

An equatorial-adjacent launch site is a genuine cost advantage for small-satellite customers, not just a flag-planting story.

Set a first flight's success bar before you fly: Gilmour counted ignition, tower clearance and data as wins, so a 14-second crash still advanced the program — the reframe that kept SpaceX iterating.

As of August 2025, Gilmour Space is still operating and building its next vehicle after the July 30 crash of Eris TestFlight 1, Australia's first homegrown orbital launch attempt. CEO Adam Gilmour framed the 14-second flight as a step forward, citing SpaceX and Rocket Lab's own failed first flights. The next vehicle was already in production and TestFlight 2 was the target; the Bowen spaceport and pad survived intact. Whether Eris reaches orbit on a later attempt decides if the hybrid-rocket bet converts into commercial launches.