{"id":937762,"date":"2026-10-23T05:34:14","date_gmt":"2026-10-23T05:34:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/937762\/"},"modified":"2026-10-23T05:34:14","modified_gmt":"2026-10-23T05:34:14","slug":"federal-government-makes-offer-to-send-australian-of-the-year-to-space","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/937762\/","title":{"rendered":"Federal government makes offer to send Australian of the Year to space"},"content":{"rendered":"

The federal government has submitted a final bid to the European Space Agency (ESA) to send Australian of the Year Katherine Bennell-Pegg to the International Space Station.<\/p>\n

If ESA agrees to Australia’s offer, Ms Bennell-Pegg will be required to attend training at the European Space Agency\u2019s astronaut training centre in Cologne, Germany and NASA facilities in the United States.<\/p>\n

“We have submitted a final bid to our friends in the European Space Agency,” Science Minister Tim Ayres said on Friday morning.<\/p>\n

“We are grateful for the opportunity to apply for this important project. It is an important opportunity. It does require careful fiscal management and making sure that we are balancing the fiscal pressures appropriately.”<\/p>\n

If ESA accepts Australia’s bid, Ms Bennell-Pegg will become the first person to formally represent Australia in a space agency mission.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Previous Australians have either flown to space with private companies, or taken US citizenship to fly with NASA.<\/p>\n

A spokesperson for the minister said “the government has long held ambition to see an Australian astronaut go to space wearing an Australian flag on their space suit”.<\/p>\n

\"Australian<\/p>\n

The Australian Government has already funded Katherine Bennell-Pegg’s basic astronaut training, which was completed in 2024. (Supplied: European Space Agency)<\/p>\n

“The government has been engaging extensively with the private sector, philanthropists, and other levels of government to raise funding to support a space flight \u2014 which is a significant cost,” the spokesperson said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“We are grateful to the philanthropists who have committed over $6 million in cash, plus in-kind support, and some indicative support from some state governments.”<\/p>\n

It is understood these contributions are encapsulated in the industry-led “flyKatherine” campaign, which this week had reached a reported $25 million.\u00a0<\/p>\n

South Australia is the only state or territory to have publicly confirmed it would provide financial support<\/a> to the endeavour.\u00a0<\/p>\n

On Friday, SA Health Minister Blair Boyer said the decision showed ambition from Australia.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“I think there is something big around the inspiration of sending anyone into space but, again, a South Australian, and a South Australian woman to do that,” Mr Boyer said.<\/p>\n

“It\u2019s welcome news and it\u2019s good of us to have some ambition about this kind of stuff as well. I would hate to think we\u2019ve lost that kind of ambition around doing these things.”<\/p>\n

ESA originally offered Australia a mission seat for Ms Bennell-Pegg at the beginning of this year, for a reported cost of $100 million.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The federal government did not give details on how much money it had committed in its final bid.<\/p>\n

A government spokesperson told the ABC a response to its bid was expected by the end of the year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The federal government has submitted a final bid to the European Space Agency (ESA) to send Australian of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":937763,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[64,63,155664,11046,9776,69,8523,113241,128,285,67202,39185],"class_list":["post-937762","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australian-of-the-year","tag-esa","tag-european-space-agency","tag-federal-government","tag-international-space-station","tag-katherine-bennell-pegg","tag-science","tag-space","tag-space-program","tag-tim-ayres"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/937762","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=937762"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/937762\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/937763"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=937762"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=937762"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=937762"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}