SYDNEY: An Australian aerospace firm said Friday it has scrubbed a historic attempt to send a locally developed rocket into orbit, citing a glitch in the nose cone protecting its payload — a jar of Vegemite.
An electrical fault erroneously deployed the opening mechanism of the carbon-fiber nose cone during pre-flight testing, Gilmour Space Technologies said.
The nose cone is designed to shield the payload during the rocket’s ascent through the Earth’s atmosphere before reaching space.
The mishap happened before fueling of the vehicle at the company’s spaceport near the east coast township of Bowen, about 1,000 kilometers up from the Queensland capital Brisbane.
“The good news is the rocket and the team are both fine. While we’re disappointed by the delay, we’re already working through a resolution and expect to be back on the pad soon,” said chief executive Adam Gilmour.
“As always, safety is our highest priority.”
Gilmour said the team would now work to identify the problem on its 23-meter, three-stage Eris rocket, which is designed to send satellites into low-Earth orbit.
A replacement nose cone would be transported to the launch site in the coming days, he said.
Weighing 30 tons fully fueled, the rocket has a hybrid propulsion system, using a solid inert fuel and a liquid oxidiser, which provides the oxygen for it to burn.
If successful, it would be the first Australian-made rocket to be sent into orbit from Australian soil.
“We have all worked really hard so, yes, the team is disappointed. But on the other hand, we do rockets — they are used to setbacks,” said communications chief Michelle Gilmour.
“We are talking about at least a few weeks, so it is not going to happen now,” she told AFP.
The payload for the initial test — a jar of Vegemite — remained intact.
“It’s hardy, resilient, like Aussies,” she said.
Gilmour Space Technologies had to delay a launch attempt the previous day, too, because of a bug in the external power system it relies on for system checks.
The company, which has 230 employees, hopes to start commercial launches in late 2026 or early 2027.
It has worked on rocket development for a decade, and is backed by investors including venture capital group Blackbird and pension fund HESTA.
Nose cone glitch wipes Australian rocket launch
https://arab.news/ct2z5
Nose cone glitch wipes Australian rocket launch
- The mishap happened before fueling of the vehicle at the company’s spaceport near the east coast township of Bowen
UN slams world’s ‘apathy’ in launching aid appeal for 2026
- ‘Prioritized’ plan to raise at least $23 billion to help 87 million people in the world’s most dangerous places such as Gaza and Ukraine
UNITED NATIONS, United States: The United Nations on Monday hit out at global “apathy” over widespread suffering as it launched its 2026 appeal for humanitarian assistance, which is limited in scope as aid operations confront major funding cuts.
“This is a time of brutality, impunity and indifference,” UN humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher told reporters, condemning “the ferocity and the intensity of the killing, the complete disregard for international law, horrific levels of sexual violence” he had seen on the ground in 2025.
“This is a time when the rules are in retreat, when the scaffolding of coexistence is under sustained attack, when our survival antennae have been numbed by distraction and corroded by apathy,” he said.
He said it was also a time “when politicians boast of cutting aid,” as he unveiled a streamlined plan to raise at least $23 billion to help 87 million people in the world’s most dangerous places such as Gaza, Ukraine, Sudan, Haiti and Myanmar.
The United Nations would like to ultimately raise $33 billion to help 135 million people in 2026 — but is painfully aware that its overall goal may be difficult to reach, given US President Donald Trump’s slashing of foreign aid.
Fletcher said the “highly prioritized appeal” was “based on excruciating life-and-death choices,” adding that he hoped Washington would see the choices made, and the reforms undertaken to improve aid efficiency, and choose to “renew that commitment” to help.
The world body estimates that 240 million people in conflict zones, suffering from epidemics, or victims of natural disasters and climate change are in need of emergency aid.
‘Lowest in a decade’
In 2025, the UN’s appeal for more than $45 billion was only funded to the $12 billion mark — the lowest in a decade, the world body said.
That only allowed it to help 98 million people, 25 million fewer than the year before.
According to UN data, the United States remains the top humanitarian aid donor in the world, but that amount fell dramatically in 2025 to $2.7 billion, down from $11 billion in 2024.
Atop the list of priorities for 2026 are Gaza and the West Bank.
The UN is asking for $4.1 billion for the occupied Palestinian territories, in order to provide assistance to three million people.
Another country with urgent need is Sudan, where deadly conflict has displaced millions: the UN is hoping to collect $2.9 billion to help 20 million people.
In Tawila, where residents of Sudan’s western city of El-Fasher fled ethnically targeted violence, Fletcher said he met a young mother who saw her husband and child murdered.
She fled, with the malnourished baby of her slain neighbors along what he called “the most dangerous road in the world” to Tawila.
Men “attacked her, raped her, broke her leg, and yet something kept her going through the horror and the brutality,” he said.
“Does anyone, wherever you come from, whatever you believe, however you vote, not think that we should be there for her?”
The United Nations will ask member states top open their government coffers over the next 87 days — one day for each million people who need assistance.
And if the UN comes up short, Fletcher predicts it will widen the campaign, appealing to civil society, the corporate world and everyday people who he says are drowning in disinformation suggesting their tax dollars are all going abroad.
“We’re asking for only just over one percent of what the world is spending on arms and defense right now,” Fletcher said.
“I’m not asking people to choose between a hospital in Brooklyn and a hospital in Kandahar — I’m asking the world to spend less on defense and more on humanitarian support.”
