Best of the week — the five most popular stories among @AuManufacturing’s readers

What were the five biggest stories this week? Here’s what visitors to this site were reading.

AUKUS SUBMARINES: TIME, COST & JOBS BY SCOTT ELAURANT

Since AUKUS was announced the UK has advised that Astute Class SSNs are not available.

This leaves the choice of SSN between the US Virginia Class and the UK SSN(R) and US SSN(X) Classes now under design.

Here Scott Elaurant considers the choices, including the French Barracuda Class SSN, since it has been confirmed that it was available to Australia and fit for purpose.

MONASH SPINOUT BELIEVES IT HAS CORE INGREDIENT FOR ELECTRIC AVIATION REVOLUTION

Kite Magnetics recently completed an $1.85 million seed round and hopes to be the Rolls-Royce of e-aviation. Brent Balinski spoke to co-founder Dr Richard Parsons.

Until recently, Parsons considered a lab at Monash University his “happy place”. The materials engineer – from a family of engineers – had a focus researching magnetic materials, earning a PhD under Deputy Head of Materials Science and Engineering at Monash, Professor Kiyonori Suzuki.

Parsons and Suzuki spun their breakthrough work in nanocrystalline magnetic core materials – named Aeroperm – out into a company named Kite Magnetics, which hopes to develop the world’s highest-performing electric motors, initially for aircraft.

$18 MILLION AWARDED UNDER FIRST ROUND OF NEW AVIATION GRANT PROGRAM

Grants totalling $18 million have been awarded to 12 projects under round one of the federal Emerging Aviation Technology Partnerships (EATP) program.

The program commits $32.6 million to June 2024, with the remaining funding to be allocated in its second round.

Projects supported in round one include drone deliveries for health centres, integrating a hydrogen fuel cell into a drone, and “manufacturing focusing on regulatory barriers and trials of air ambulance” for AMSL Aero’s Vertiia aircraft. (A full list of projects is reproduced below.)

CALIX AWARDED $947,000 FOR ENGINEERING AND DESIGN STUDY ON DEMO-SCALE IRON FACTORY

The Australian Renewable Energy Agency has announced $947,000 in funding to Calix, supporting an investigation into the feasibility of a hydrogen direct reduced iron (DRI) plant using the Australian company’s Zero Emissions Steel Technology (ZESTY) process.

According to a statement from ARENA, the funding would assist a pre-FEED and FEED (Front End Engineering and Design) study for a demonstration-scale plant with 30,000 tonnes per annum capacity of HDRI.

The study, budgeted at $1.96 million, is expected to conclude in late-2023. It will decide whether or not a demonstration plant is built.

‘ALL ENGINES NOW QUALIFIED’ SAYS GILMOUR AHEAD OF 2023 LAUNCH

Gilmour Space Technologies has announced the successful qualification test of its Sirius hybrid rocket engine, ahead of a planned orbital launch in the first half of 2023.

The Gold Coast-based company issued a short statement on Tuesday morning – accompanied by a video of the test (reproduced below) – saying that “All engines are now qualified for our first orbital test launch next year.”

“I’m happy to share that the test was a success. Our Sirius engine generated a record 115 kilonewtons (or 25,850 pounds force) of stable and efficient combustion,” said co-founder and CEO Adam Gilmour.

Picture credit: Kite Magnetics