Defence industry company, Black Sky Industries, has launched in Australia with a multi-million-dollar headquarters in Southeast Queensland and manufacturing facilities throughout Western Queensland.
Formerly known as Black Sky Aerospace, the company is Australia’s only sovereign developer and supplier of solid rocket propellant and solid rocket motors to the defence sector.
With the launch of its facilities, Black Sky aims to greatly accelerate the production capability of sovereign scaled rocket motor and defence systems.
Black Sky Industries was founded by aerospace, defence and manufacturing industry veterans Blake Nikolic and Karl Hemphill, and Dr Vu Tran, who co-founded $3 billion-plus technology startup Go1.
The company has ambitions of creating hundreds of advanced manufacturing and defence industry jobs over the next decade.
“At Black Sky, complex rocket manufacturing is done with a high degree of innovation, security and safety but at much lower cost than others. This has the potential to save Australia and our allies billions of dollars and ensure taxpayer funds can be utilised in other areas,” said Nikolic.
“We innovate, move quickly, and deliver results. We achieve what others won’t even attempt and we imagine the unimaginable and bring it to life. Like traditional technology and software companies, we have a strong focus on product velocity, a concept we think will be essential in future defence technology development.”
Recent key hires at the company include former L3Harris Technologies director David Johnson as general manager, enterprise development and defence innovation veteran Stephen Delo.
Black Sky is reimagining how rockets are designed, developed and manufactured at scale.
As a local producer of ammonium perchlorate (AP), Black Sky produces solid rocket propellant and motors, and offers its homegrown, proprietary Wagtail Rocket Assisted Take-Off (RATO) technology for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) and drones.
Black Sky’s rapid-fire pace to innovate is in line with a key tenet of the federal government’s 2024 National Defence Strategy, to better integrate existing and emerging technologies, and to deliver defence effectiveness in the coming decade.
Tran said Black Sky will help secure and strengthen local defence supply chains and reduce Australia’s dependence on external jurisdictions.
“Australia spends $50-$55 billion on defence each year yet we’re lucky to have just one company in the top 100 list of defence suppliers. Black Sky aims to change that,” said Tran.
“Having sovereign defence capability will help Australia achieve greater efficiency and resilience in the delivery of defence technologies, and in our ability to protect the nation.”