Australia’s Cooperative Research Centres Projects (CRC-P) Grants, which support short-term collaborative research projects, has selected 2 space-related projects out of the 24 recently awarded.
The first, worth US$1.91m (AU$2.85m) went to Liquid Instruments Pty Ltd, the Australian National University (ANU) and EOS Space Systems Pty Limited, who are developing next-generation test and measurement devices for photonics sensing. The project will commercialise advanced test and measurement technology to enable high-performance optics and photonics sensing for industrial, education and defence applications, including laser ranging systems and laser communications for a deep-space internet and secure military communications.
The second, worth US$2.01m (AU$3m), went to Gilmour Space Technologies Pty Ltd, The Trustee for the Teakle Composites Trust, and University of Southern Queensland for the manufacture of lightweight rocket fuel tanks to make space affordable. Together, three entities will develop composite rocket fuel tanks for low cost space transport, and will manufacture cryogenic linerless composite fuel tanks up to two meters in diameter and trial them in rocket flights.
Gilmour Space CEO and founder Adam Gilmour welcomed the Federal Government funding as the company races to launch its first commercial rocket to orbit in 2022.
“We are grateful to receive this funding, which will allow us to develop world-class composite materials and components for our orbital launch vehicles – making our rockets more efficient and reducing the cost of access to space,” he said.
