Australia offers Katherine Bennell-Pegg for future space station mission

Australia’s federal government said on Friday, 23 October, that it had submitted an offer to the European Space Agency (ESA) for astronaut Katherine Bennell-Pegg to join a future International Space Station mission. The offer could put the Australian of the Year in space as a formal representative of Australia, but the flight depends on ESA accepting the bid.

Science Minister Tim Ayres called the submission a ‘final bid’ and said it required careful management of competing budget pressures, ABC News reported. The Guardian reported that the proposed mission was slated for 2028; no flight assignment or launch date has been confirmed.

How Australia plans to fund the proposed flight

South Australia was the only state or territory to have publicly confirmed financial support when ABC News reported the offer. The federal government did not disclose its own contribution. ABC described the mission’s A$100 million cost as a widely reported estimate; Ayres’s office had previously said the undertaking was too expensive for a government to fund alone, according to the Guardian.

What an ESA agreement would mean for Bennell-Pegg

Bennell-Pegg is director of space technology at the Australian Space Agency and completed basic astronaut training with ESA in 2024. If ESA accepts Australia’s offer, she would need further training at its astronaut centre in Cologne, Germany, and at NASA facilities in the United States, ABC reported.

The distinction would be historic for Australia, though Bennell-Pegg would not be the first Australian to reach space. Australian-born Andy Thomas and Paul Scully-Power flew on NASA missions as US citizens, while dual Australian-US citizen Elaine Hyde took a suborbital Blue Origin flight last year. Bennell-Pegg would be the first qualified astronaut to fly under the Australian flag if the proposed ISS mission goes ahead, the Guardian reported.