Black Sky rebrands, opens new headquarters
Queensland space and defence company Black Sky Aerospace has rebranded as Black Sky Industries and opened a new headquarters in Logan, announcing ambitions to create “hundreds of advanced manufacturing and defence industry jobs over the next decade”.
In a statement on Wednesday, the company – which announced last year that it had become the first Australian company to produce key solid rocket fuel ingredient ammonium perchlorate – said it intended to greatly step up its production of rocket motor and defence products.
“Australia spends $50-$55 billion on defence each year yet we’re lucky to have just one company in the top 100 list of defence suppliers. Black Sky aims to change that,” said co-founder Dr Vu Tran.
“Having sovereign defence capability will help Australia achieve greater efficiency and resilience in the delivery of defence technologies, and in our ability to protect the nation.”
Black Sky said it is the nation’s sole supplier of solid fuels and rocket motors to defence, and had recently added former L3Harris Technologies director David Johnson and defence innovation veteran Stephen Delo to its team.
It also pitched its proprietary Wagtail Rocket Assisted Take-Off (RATO) technology for unmanned aerial vehicles and its Cortex1 software platform in the statement, as well as its agility as a defence supplier.
“We achieve what others won’t even attempt and we imagine the unimaginable and bring it to life,” said CEO and co-founder Blake Nikolic.
“Like traditional technology and software companies, we have a strong focus on product velocity, a concept we think will be essential in future defence technology development.”
Picture: co-founders Dr Vu Tran, Blake Nikolic and Karl Hemphill (supplied)
Further reading
Black Sky demos ‘robot with fangs’ at Polish defence show
Black Sky Aerospace gets approval to develop rocket fuel facility
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