Korea’s Innospace to Launch From Equatorial Launch Australia Spaceport

A rendering of the Innospace HANBIT NANO rocket on a launch pad at Equatorial Launch Australia’s Arnhem Space Centre. Photo: ELA

Korean launch company Innospace signed a deal with Equatorial Launch Australia (ELA) to launch multiple orbital missions from the Arnhem Space Centre (ASC), a new spaceport in Australia’s Northern Territory. Innospace’s first launches from the ASC are expected to commence in early 2025, and the deal announced Aug. 17 is a five-year agreement that runs through December 2028. 

Innospace is the first commercial company to commit to being a long term tenant and regular launcher at the spaceport. The company will be allocated a space launch complex (SLC) with two launch pads and a horizontal integration facility (HIF) for rocket assembly and payload integration. ELA will also assist Innospace to obtain an Australian launch permit, a process that is expected to take between 6 and 14 months. 

Innospace successfully launched a suborbital test vehicle HANBIT-TLV, powered by a hybrid rocket engine, in March of this year. The company is developing a range of launch vehicles designed to take payloads between 50 kg and 500 kg to 500 km Sun Synchronous Orbit.

“We are thrilled to have secured an optimal launch spaceport, the ASC, which has the benefits of launching from an equatorial spaceport and brings launch efficiencies through this multi-launch agreement with ELA. Our goal is to offer customers greater flexibility for their launch schedule and orbit access with frequent dedicated launch opportunities. We expect to enable our satellite customers to achieve significant innovation with our orbital launch services by launching from the ASC,” commented Innospace CEO Soojong Kim.