NASA’s second commercial launch takes place in Australia

NASA's second-ever commercial launch in Australia took place in the Northern Territory, with the US aeronautical giant hailing the moment as a landmark for science in the southern hemisphere.

A week of drizzling rain, wind and a 52 hour delay didn't stop the suborbital sounding rocket launch that was fired from the Arnhem Space Centre near Nhulunbuy around 11: 15 pm ACST on Wednesday.

With a guttural boom and a flash of light, the rocket, named the Sistine III, tore through the outback night sky and into space, off to explore the mysteries of the distant Alpha Centauri star system.

One of the people watching on was John Carsten, a space firm from Equatorial Launch Australia, who said he believed the launch and its scientific discoveries show the future that is ahead of us. This is a remarkable progress as civilisation goes forward, he said.

The scientists and technicians at NASA and Equatorial Launch Australia were busy preparing for the launches, and allowed the ABC a rare behind-the-scenes look at the build-up.

Kevin France, a NASA campaign scientist and principal investigator, said the spaceport became frantic at T-minus two hours prior to launch.

Around T-minus two hours, we prepare to arm the rocket motors, prepare to take the experiment's vacuum pump off and raise the launcher vertical, and then things start to get really exciting, he said.

NASA technicians were tinkering on the finer details of another sounding rocket, named Deuce, to make sure it was ready for takeoff later in the month, according to a hangar at the spaceport.

According to the astrophysicist Dr Brad Tucker, two of the sounding rockets being used in north-east Arnhem Land are about 12 metres tall and weigh 2,200 kg, with nearly half of that weight in the fuel tanks.

Wednesday's rocket has the capacity to blast as high as 500 kilometres into space and generate about 7,700 kg of thrust, propelling it skyward in less than 27 seconds.

Senior NASA scientist Michael Garcia, who is usually based in NASA's Washington DC headquarters, said it had so far been a fantastic experience at the newly built remote Northern Territory spaceport.

I'm hopeful that NASA will come back, because I can't predict the future, but my fingers are crossed that it will become a viable commercial thing for the Northern Territory. Mr France swapped his usual home in Colorado, the US, for the mission in the tropical NT township, about 700 kilometres south-east of Darwin.

We can't get to some extremely interesting astronomical targets from the north.

We've been asking to come down here because it's a unique part of the astronomical sky. One of the campaign's chief architects, Mr France, described the East Arnhem Land launch mission as a landmark for science, as it was the first on a commercial rocket port outside the US.

He said that it's the harbinger for not just suborbital rockets, but even larger rockets and joint science ventures going forward.

Mr France said the mission would try to open up the secrets of Alpha Centauri A and B, our nearest solar twins, and probe the possibility that planets around those stars could be habitable.

What is a star doing? What is the first key ingredient? He said something.

We just don't know the things about planets around other stars because we all take for granted that happen here on Earth with our sun.

Wednesday night's launch was originally scheduled for two days prior to July 4, an auspicious day for the United States team, but a prolonged bout of poor weather caused the delay.

The launch was the second of three for NASA's current Arnhem Land launch mission, with the first rocket fired late in June, and the third is scheduled to go ahead on July 12.