A company’s grand plans to launch rockets and satellites from Cape York will be revealed in Weipa this month.
Space Centre Australia hopes to start construction of its facility in 2023 and be launching rockets by the start of 2025.
Director James Palmer said preliminary discussions between SCA and Traditional Owners had been progressing well and hoped this month’s trip would result in further community consultation.
“We’re hoping to talk to a lot of people on the ground in Weipa and Napranum about our plans,” Mr Palmer said.
“There’ll be a public meeting where anyone can attend and hear our plans for the site.”
The proposed spaceport would be built on land assigned to the Mokwiri Aboriginal Corporation, which represents a number of clan groups.
The site is not far from RAAF Base Scherger as the crow flies.
Mr Palmer said there had been strong preliminary discussions with the Mokwiri executive and stakeholders.
“There’s still a bit of water to go under the bridge because there are some DOGIT transferals happening at the moment,” he said last week.
“We’re hoping to negotiate an ILUA with Mokwiri as soon as those issues are resolved.”
Environmental work is also being conducted, with further surveys to come.
“The intention is to build a long-term and permanent facility,” Mr Palmer said.
“It’s important to get integrated with the community and we want to engage with as many locals as possible to hear their thoughts and even concerns.”
If everything went according to plan, Space Centre Australia would be preparing the site for construction at some point next year, with activity ramping up in 2023.
“We’d like to see launches in 2024 or early 2025.”
The spaceport would be able to cater for small rocket launches and larger ones, depending on the appetite from the market.
“The large rockets take a long time to set up so you’re only looking at around three launches per year,” Mr Palmer said.
“The smaller to medium systems are more straightforward and you could see up to six per year.”
Regional Development Australia is in Weipa on November 15 for a community update on the Stage Two of the Cape York PDR upgrade and Mr Palmer said he had plans to take senior members for a site visit.
“We won’t quite go exactly where the site is, but we’ll be close and it will give them an idea roughly how far out of town we are and what the surroundings are like,” he said.
“The next day we’re having a community information session on November 16 at the Albatross Bay Resort at 6.30pm for anyone who might be interested in the project.
“We are also hoping to speak to local companies about their interest in becoming a supplier.”
Mr Palmer said Space Centre Australia would not be a FIFO operation and would have locally-based employees.
This article appeared in Cape York Weekly, 2 November 2021.
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