Equatorial Launch Australia (ELA) will immediately cease operations of the Arnhem Space Centre in the Northern Territory and relocate the spaceport to a new site in Queensland.
This decision has been forced by the inability of the Company to finalise a lease for the expansion of the Arnhem Space Centre. The lease approval process had been in progress formally for just under three years (the company submitted its formal application on January 1, 2022).
The decision came after the Northern Land Council (NLC) failed to meet its own specified deadline for the approval of the Head Lease for the fourth time over the last 12 months in October 2024.
Despite appeals from ELA, the Northern Territory Chief Minister’s Department and the Gumatj Corporation since February 2024, the NLC would not issue a head lease or provide any official reasons for the delays.
The Gumatj are ELA’s direct landlord for the existing site and are the traditional owners and operators of the adjacent and disused bauxite mine on the Gove Peninsula, the site that ELA had requested for the spaceport expansion.
The continued delays from the NLC have made the existence of the spaceport in the Northern Territory challenging and the most recent delay to late 2025 to allow consultation with traditional owner groups had the potential to put ELA in breach of its contractual obligations with launch clients and jeopardised a previously secured major funding round.
Accordingly, management and the board of ELA were left with no option other than to act in the best interest of its customers and shareholders, abandon negotiations, and seek an alternate equatorial site in Queensland.
Working with the Queensland Government, ELA has identified a potential alternate site and have commenced planning and regulatory clearances for its contracted launches in the third quarter of 2025. The new site, named the Australian Space Centre Cape York, will be at Weipa in Queensland.
ELA is saddened that the more than AUD100 million investment it was making in the East Arnhem region, the projected AUD3.6 billion in direct economic stimulus, local job creation, support and motivation for local and regional students in STEM projects, and the long-term opportunities that were forecast over the life of the proposed lease will no longer materialise.
ELA thanked the Northern Territory Government and the Gumatj Corporation, who the company say have been exemplary partners in the spaceport’s eight-year existence and throughout this difficult process.
