The federal government’s deadline is unclear, however ABC News understands October was the key month to notify Europe of its decision.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The European Space Agency declined to confirm whether Australia had accepted the offer.\u00a0<\/p>\n
![\"Katherine](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/e86628e285286bb1a048cc71b0d32f1f.jpeg\")
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The Australian Government funded Katherine Bennell-Pegg’s astronaut training with the European Space Agency, which she completed in 2024. (Supplied: European Space Agency)<\/p>\n
Private backers hoping to get Australian to the launch pad<\/p>\n
Ms Bennell-Pegg, who is the current Australian of the Year and director of space technology for the Australian Space Agency, has already undergone taxpayer-funded basic astronaut training with ESA following a special invitation to the Australian government.\u00a0<\/p>\n
She completed that training in 2024<\/a>, becoming the first astronaut trained “under” the Australian flag.\u00a0<\/p>\n While other Australians have travelled to space, none have done so as a formal representative of the country with a space agency, which would mark a milestone in Australia’s space story.\u00a0<\/p>\n Andy Thomas<\/a> and Paul Scully-Power<\/a> were both US citizens during their time with NASA.\u00a0<\/p>\n More recently, other Australians including Eric Philips<\/a>, Chris Boshuizen<\/a> and Elaine Hyde<\/a> travelled on space flights with private companies.<\/p>\n The pitch for Ms Bennell-Pegg’s spaceflight has drawn public support from former Labor Prime Ministers Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard, along with current federal ministers.<\/p>\n SA Premier Peter Malinauskas confirmed his state would financially support the pitch to send Katherine Bennell-Pegg to space even if other states did not. (ABC News: Daniel Taylor)<\/p>\n But state reluctance means the federal government would have to shoulder most of the financial responsibility.\u00a0<\/p>\n “I think it’s incumbent upon the federal government to really make the case of why, from a national perspective,” said Professor Larry James, a former deputy director of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory who is now based at Monash University\/strategic advisor to the Australasian Space Innovation Institute.<\/p>\n Professor James said that a decision against the mission wouldn’t be a “death knell” for Australia’s space industry, but would send a global signal of the nation’s space priorities.<\/p>\n “I think we want to show that we are serious \u2013 we are serious about being a nation that invests in high technology, invests in space and wants to have sovereign capabilities, and this [mission] is a step to go down that path,” he said.<\/p>\n A public crowdfunding campaign would act as an additional offset to the taxpayer contribution, should it get the green light from government.\u00a0<\/p>\n It has raised around $25 million in private and corporate donations, including from the Scully-Power family of Australia\u2019s first astronaut Paul Scully-Power, who flew on the Challenger spacecraft as an American “flagged” astronaut in 1984.\u00a0<\/p>\n Entrepreneurs Jim Whalley and Dick Smith have committed $1 million each, along with similar contributions from private companies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"South Australia will still support a proposed mission to send European-trained astronaut Katherine Bennell-Pegg to the International Space…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":934870,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[64,63,155664,120717,9776,69,2494,8523,113241,24805,128,285],"class_list":["post-934869","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australian-of-the-year","tag-australian-space-agency","tag-european-space-agency","tag-federal-government","tag-funding","tag-international-space-station","tag-katherine-bennell-pegg","tag-peter-malinauskas","tag-science","tag-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/934869","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=934869"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/934869\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/934870"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=934869"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=934869"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=934869"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/946c88a0b04caea6e1b4b76acb9ecab8.jpeg\")
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