Hello, fellow space enthusiasts.

Time has a way of accelerating when you’re chasing the stars, and here we are already well into 2025. I hope you’ve followed our journey as closely as we’ve been living it – because the momentum isn’t slowing anytime soon. 
 
To ensure the Allies maintain space superiority and safeguard space for everyone, a key need is to rapidly increase the number of low-cost rapid response vehicles that can perform tasks in orbit quickly. Allied and friendly nations are addressing this by increasing their budgets and becoming more flexible in purchasing commercial solutions. This is excellent news for SMC.
 
In a few months, we will have the capacity to produce five Optimus Viper spacecraft simultaneously, scaling to 20+ units per year! We are also attending the India Space Congress in India, where we look forward connecting with our mission partners.
 
Since our last update, we’ve hit important milestones:

• UTS manufacturing partnership – creating the largest AIT facility for small satellites in Australia
• Scintilla Engine – successful long fire test takes us to TRL 8
• Space Maitri mission PDR – crucial validation of mission planning and design progress
• The Hon. Senator Tim Ayres appointment as the Minister for Industry and Innovation and Minister for Science – we are looking forward to working closely with him and taking him along SMC’s journey.  

SMC believes deeply in the need for Australia to be a strong and resilient country, meaningfully contributing to allied space capabilities and building an enduring partnership with India. We will keep working tirelessly on our mission. 

Enjoy our updates below. 🚀

George Freney

Co-founder of Space Machines Company

Why space manufacturing should be a national strategic priority

Our CEO, Rajat Kulshrestha, shared his insights with Capital Brief on the urgency to invest in local space manufacturing capabilities, highlighting the clear choice Australia has between investing now in space manufacturing capabilities or risking our economic and national security future. Read more here.

Overcoming conservatism in the autonomous space revolution 

SMC’s Attitude and Orbit Control Systems Lead, Justin du Plessis, goes deep on why the space industry is on the cusp of a major shift towards spacecraft autonomy, moving beyond the current reliance on constant ground control. Justin shares his thoughts on how the industry can overcome this. Read more here.

HEO launches camera on Space-MAITRI Mission

HEO has been chosen by Space Machines Company to support its on-orbit servicing and space debris mitigation demonstration, Space-MAITRI, which is scheduled to launch in late 2026. The Australian collaboration will see HEO’s advanced non-Earth imaging (NEI) camera integrated into Space Machines Company’s Rapid Response Vehicle, Optimus Viper. Read more here.

AUS SPACE Australian Space Awards

SMC, for the first time, entered the 2025 Australian Space Awards. It was incredible to be recognised as finalists in all categories we entered, including Rising Star of the Year, Business of the Year, Executive of the Year, and Engineer of the Year. A huge congratulations to our Lead Systems Engineering and Payloads, Julia Mitchell, who won Female Space Leader of the Year. Read more here and here. 

Podcast: Australia-India Space Cooperation

Rajat collaborated with Dr Samuel Bashfield from the Australia India Institute to explore the evolving space domain, the key opportunities and challenges faced by Australian space firms, collaborations with Indian players to alleviate these challenges, the Space MATRI mission and SMC’s current projects. Listen to the podcast here.

Meet Justin du Plessis  👋
Attitude and Orbit Control Systems Lead

“Hey there, I'm Justin du Plessis, SMC’s Attitude and Orbit Control Systems Lead!" 

My journey into space started with a coin toss! As a third year undergrad in Electrical & Mechanical Engineering at the University of Cape Town, I wanted to do something challenging and innovative, but was torn between two alluring options: Formula 1, or Space.

In the end, I let fate decide and the coin I flipped under a street light led me to Space.

I completed my Master's Degree in Astronautical Engineering at the University of Southern California, focusing on advanced Orbital Mechanics and Spacecraft Attitude Dynamics - while simultaneously working full time, building and running a test rig for a liquid rocket engine, working on my first satellite as a GNC engineer; designing an air-bearing-based RPO simulation testbed for JPL group's robotic arm tests, and working as a course tutor.

This grueling schedule was bearable only because I absolutely loved it. Several twists and turns later, I started as a GNC engineer at a company that grew to become Dragonfly Aerospace. After 3 years there, I felt that high-quality, low-cost Earth observation is a very difficult problem, but we had solved it - then the brevity of SMC's approach to attacking problems very few people have tackled before grabbed me.

My road here has been indirect and entirely human - the antithesis of the work I'm doing at SMC to enable our guidance, control and navigation systems to progress towards human-on-the-loop autonomy.

Our partner spotlight: UTS – Announcement of OF-01 build

Earlier this month, we announced the creation of Australia’s largest industrial-scale spacecraft manufacturing facility and renewed our partnership for a further three years with UTS Tech Lab. 

The Optimus Factory (OF-01), located at UTS Tech Lab in Sydney, marks a major milestone in Australia’s space industry, establishing critical sovereign capabilities to design, assemble and test spacecraft at scale.

You can read the announcement on the UTS website here.

We are so incredibly proud of the work the team is doing to establish local manufacturing capabilities. Together, we are helping create high-skilled jobs and retaining intellectual property within our borders, ensuring Australia can independently develop, produce, and deploy space infrastructure essential for our future security and prosperity.

We had the input and support from some of our key partners and stakeholders including Professor Michael Blumenstein, Pro Vice Chancellor (Business Creation and Major Facilities) at UTS, Minister for Industry and Trade, and Minister for Innovation, Science and Technology, the Hon Anoulack Chanthivong, Professor Andrew Parfitt, Vice-Chancellor and President of the University of Technology Sydney, and Head of the Australian Space Agency, Enrico Palermo.

You can read more about the facility and partnership in an interview with InnovationAus here.

Our Head of Marketing, Sharmila Fernando, joined an incredible panel of judges last week at the NSW Space Discovery Program Showcase. Students from across NSW presented their innovative solutions - from using space technologies to solve Earth's 🌏 problems to creating cutting-edge tools for astronauts.  Read more here. 

Our Chief Commercial Officer, Mark Ramsey and CEO Rajat Kulshrestha appeared on a panel discussions at Aus Space 25. Raj also delivered a keynote addressing the need for powering space resilience and SMC’s approach to providing it. It was encouraging to see consensus on our view that Australia must produce with purpose. Read more here. 

We had a delegation attend the Global Space Exploration Conference in New Delhi and connected with space leaders who are part of India's growing influence in the global space sector. 🧑🏼‍🚀The exhibition showcased 22 innovations from homegrown Indian space startups to global heavyweights and ISRO. Read more here.

Out of this World 🌎

Materials that might be commonly used on earth are not an option for space; due to their tendency to off-gas, need to withstand extreme temperature fluctuations and other harsh conditions.

Even solder behaves strangely in space: over time (5-10 years), the tin leaks away from joins to produce "tin whiskers" that expand and eventually create disconnections in circuitry boards.