The Arnhem Space Centre was a commercial spaceport near Nhulunbuy, in Arnhem Land, Australia. The facility was owned and operated by Equatorial Launch Australia, both of which were founded by Scott Wallis in 2016. ASC was the location of NASA's first non-orbital sounding rocket launch from a commercial spaceport outside the United States, which took place on 27 June 2022. After the initial set of launches, there were plans for private companies to use the site, but operations were ceased in 2024 due to a dispute with the Northern Land Council.
The project took six years to develop, and the small team worked from Canberra to obtain a lease, sign the NASA contract and design the site. It was announced publicly in 2019. The location near the Equator allows launches to be conducted cheaper and quicker than alternatives.
The spaceport was located near Nhulunbuy, a township on the Gove Peninsula in north-east Arnhem Land, in the Northern Territory. The ASC was owned and operated by Equatorial Launch Australia (ELA), which has its head office in Adelaide, South Australia.
Arnhem Space Centre was equipped to launch both sub-orbital flights and small orbital flights. The site's location, only 12 degrees south of the equator, is preferable for orbital rockets launching east, as extra speed is provided due to the spin of Earth. It is the first commercial spaceport in Australia, and the only one. Scott Wallis, the founder, was a flight test navigator with the Royal Australian Airforce and had experience developing spaceports.
On 26 June 2022, the American space agency NASA used the site for its first launch from a commercial port outside the United States. The rocket was a Black Brant IX carrying an X-ray Quantum Calorimeter (XQC) instrument for UWâÂÂMadison for the purpose of X-ray astronomy for a brief period ( 5-20 min) in space. The mission was a suborbital flight with apogee of . It was the first launch of a suborbital sounding rocket from Arnhem Space Centre in north-east Arnhem Land. The mission was successful.
A second launch was scheduled for 4 July but was delayed until 6 July 11:17pm ACST due to weather conditions. The spacecraft, named Sistine III, was sent by NASA to investigate the properties of astronomical transits of nearby exoplanets.
The third launch took place on 11 July 2022 at 8:31pm ACST, carrying the fourth DEUCE mission, intended by NASA to investigate and analyze the Alpha Centauri star system's ultraviolet spectrum.
After the initial series of launces, the long term future of the site was not known, but Equatorial Launch Australia indicated in 2022 that there were other space companies interested in using the rocket launch pad, and NASA confirmed that it intended to use the facility again in the future.
In 2023 ELA signed an agreement with Phantom Space Corporation, a US rocket company, to collaborate on missions at ASC. Phantom has links to the US Department of Defense, and an ELA spokesperson said that the launch site could one day be used for missile-testing and development. Phantom hopes to mass-produce rockets, which could be fired from the ASC site by 2025. While the main focus is on commercial uses, the potential for involvement in military use has raised concerns among the local community. Later that year, ELA also announced a planned series of launches in early 2025 by Innospace of South Korea.
In December of 2024, ELA announced it would cease operations and move to a different location, citing that they were unable to secure a new land lease deal with the Northern Land Council in a timely fashion. Council leader Yuseph Deen stated that ELA followed "less than satisfactory conduct". ELA later relocated to a new site near the town of Weipa in Queensland.