French rocket company Sirius Space Services has signed a contract with Equatorial Launch Australia (ELA) for a multi-year, multi-launch campaign from the Arnhem Space Centre (ASC) at the World Space Business Week conference in Paris, France overnight.
The agreement will see Sirius become a ‘Resident Launcher’ at the spaceport from 2025, taking up residency at their own dedicated Space Launch Complex (SLC) for the extended term of their multi-year contract.
Sirius has elected to take up a ‘full service’ solution to be provided by ELA, taking advantage of the full suite of launch and mission support services and facilities available at the commercial East Arnhem Land spaceport.
The campaign will begin with the development and test flights of SIRIUS 1 in 2026 followed by launches of the larger SIRIUS 13 (800kg payload capacity) in 2027.
ELA’s Group CEO Michael Jones said: “Sirius will become the second resident launcher at the Arnhem Space Centre which means they will leverage ELA’s advanced commercial spaceport concept, taking advantage of our comprehensive suite of launch solutions, innovative commercial offering and the best customer service and support to increase efficiency, safety, mission assuredness and commercial benefit to Sirius.”
Sirius plans to scale up over time to 18 launches per year of its three variants of rocket, SIRIUS 1, SIRIUS 13 and, in future, the large 4 booster SIRIUS 15 variant.
Jones said: “It was key for Sirius to have the ability to access unique orbit options to service their clients and we are probably the only place on the planet that could provide access to these orbits, the support level required, and access to the scope of launch services in the timeframe required.”
Sirius has selected Space Launch Complex No.3 (SLC3) or ‘Le Mans’ for their home base.
The Le Mans SLC will have a dedicated 45m x 26m x 12m high Horizontal Integration Facility (HIF) with ISO 8 vertical payload integration clean room with its own full span, 20T gantry crane.
Picture: Sirius Space Services