ASA — Australian Space Agency

Overview

The Australian Space Agency (ASA) is Australia's national space agency, established on 1 July 2018 and headquartered at the Lot Fourteen innovation precinct in Adelaide. Unlike NASA or ESA, the ASA is deliberately lean: it regulates launches and returns, coordinates national policy and channels investment into a commercial sector it aims to grow dramatically, rather than operating its own satellite fleet.

Australia's space history is longer than its agency's: the WRESAT satellite flew from Woomera in 1967, making Australia one of the first nations to orbit a satellite from home soil. Today the frontier is commercial again — Gilmour Space's Eris rocket began orbital launch attempts from Queensland's Bowen Orbital Spaceport in 2025, while the agency's Moon to Mars programme buys Australian technology a seat in NASA's Artemis effort, headlined by the Roo-ver lunar rover.

Quick Facts

Key Programmes

Moon to Mars initiative

The ASA's flagship programme, funding Australian industry to contribute to NASA's Artemis missions — including the Australian-built Roo-ver lunar rover, named by public vote, which will search for lunar oxygen-bearing soil.

Launch regulation & spaceports

The agency licenses Australia's new launch sites, including the Bowen Orbital Spaceport in Queensland and the Koonibba Test Range and Southern Launch sites in South Australia.

Gilmour Space Eris

Australia's shot at domestic orbital launch: the privately built Eris rocket made its debut flight attempts in 2025 from Bowen — the first orbital launch attempts from Australian soil in over half a century.

International partnerships

Australia was a founding signatory of the Artemis Accords in 2020 and hosts critical ground infrastructure, from NASA's Deep Space Network station at Tidbinbilla to ESA's New Norcia antenna.

Launch Infrastructure

Launch Vehicles

Timeline