NASA has launched the first rocket from an Australian commercial spaceport, the first such launch from outside the US.
The suborbital rocket lifted off early Monday and allowed for astrophysical studies that can only be undertaken in the Southern Hemisphere, according to NASA.
The launch was also the first in Australia in more than 25 years.
The rocket is the first of three NASA rockets to be launched from the newly built Arnhem Space Center on the edge of the Northern Territory.
The secrets of constellations 430 million light years away
The probe’s stay in space was short – the 13-meter-long probe fell back to Earth after 15 minutes, it says BBC.
But experts believe the data collected during this time will help unlock the secrets of the constellations 430 million light-years away.
“It was effectively a large X-ray camera that looked at various astral phenomena in the Milky Way and in particular the Alpha Centauri star cluster,” Michael Jones, executive director of the Arnhem Space Centre, told local network Nine.