About Space Connect

Space Connect

Overview

Space Connect is an Australian online media and market intelligence platform dedicated to the country's space industry, published by Momentum Media from Sydney. At spaceconnectonline.com.au it publishes daily news and analysis on launch, satellites, research and industry, supported by a daily subscription bulletin, the Space Connect Podcast, and two of the sector's biggest annual gatherings: the Australian Space Summit & Exhibition and the Australian Space Awards. It has no print edition; the website and its events are the product.

The platform was created for a young industry. When it launched, Australia's space sector was small, newly organised around a national space agency, and poorly served by dedicated media. Space Connect set out to be the central hub where that industry reads about itself: government and agency decisions, start-ups and primes, launch providers, universities, investors and the adjacent sectors — defence, telecommunications, agriculture, mining and transport — that buy space services. Its own LinkedIn profile describes a dedicated market intelligence, media and information platform whose aim is to drive the growth of the domestic industry and project Australia's space capabilities globally.

History

Momentum Media announced Space Connect on 7 November 2018, in an announcement carried by its sister title Defence Connect. Phillip Tarrant, Momentum's director for defence and space, fronted the launch, describing Space Connect as the first dedicated market intelligence, media and information platform for Australia's burgeoning space industry and the first platform to connect space professionals with jobs, support space careers, reveal business opportunities, drive the start-up sector and highlight funding opportunities. The LinkedIn company profile likewise dates the brand's founding to 2018.

The launch case rested on projections Tarrant cited at the time, which remain the brand's founding rationale and are reported here as those launch-era claims: a global space economy then estimated at US$350 billion and potentially worth US$1 trillion by the 2040s; an Australian sector valued at between $3 billion and $4 billion a year, projected to triple by 2030 to between $10 billion and $12 billion; and more than 20,000 Australian space jobs by 2030. The announced model combined an information and ideas exchange, a funding and grant opportunities engine, and market intelligence delivered through an interactive digital hub with podcast and broadcast channels and daily updates.

The brand was visible in the industry almost immediately. In its early period it acted as an industry partner for Black Sky Aerospace's first commercial payload launch from a remote site in Queensland, with the Space Connect logo carried on the rocket — an episode Momentum recorded with some pride as the first time one of its brands had gone into space. In 2019 Space Connect unveiled the Australian Space Awards, supported by principal partner KBR, to recognise the individuals and businesses building the space economy across telecommunications, satellite, energy, mining, transport, defence, agriculture and disaster and water management; the inaugural black-tie gala was held at the Four Seasons Hotel Sydney on 26 March 2020, with the Australian Space Agency and the Space Industry Association of Australia as supporting partners.

Momentum Media's October 2025 sale of its seven wealth titles — Money Management, InvestorDaily, IFA, SMSF Adviser, Fintech Business, Adviser Innovation and Super Review — to Prime Creative Media did not include Space Connect. The brand remains with Momentum, in the defence and space portfolio alongside Defence Connect, Australian Aviation and Cyber Daily.

Content and Coverage

Space Connect publishes news daily under sections that include Launch, Satellites, Industry, Research and Discovery. Its homepage in mid-October 2026 showed the shape of the beat: a Virgin Galactic and US Air Force Research Laboratory agreement to capture space weather data, dated 16 October 2026; an ARC Training Centre for Space Domain Awareness securing $5 million in funding over five years; a third flight of Sunburnt Space's Mini Meggs rocket; NASA heat shield trials; and Northrop Grumman satellite launches for the US Space Development Agency. Australian industry news — Gilmour Space's Eris rocket program, the ELO2 consortium's lunar rover, Space Centre Australia's spaceport plans — sits alongside agency, university and international developments that affect local readers.

The editorial bylines are led by Adam Thorn, the title's editor and podcast host, whose author biography records a career across more than 40 media brands in the UK and Australia since 2005, including The Sunday Times, Mumbrella, GQ and The Australian Women's Weekly, and a move to Momentum Media in early 2020 writing for Australian Aviation and Space Connect; his author page listed more than 700 articles. Senior journalist Robert Dougherty also writes and hosts for the brand, fronting 2026 podcast episodes on in-space logistics and orbital policy. Analysis frequently draws on the wider Momentum defence desk, including Defence and Aerospace Lead Steve Kuper, who speaks for the brand at its awards and summit announcements.

Beyond news, the platform was designed as a marketplace: job connections for space professionals, careers support, business opportunity and funding information, and commercialisation pathways connecting research with customers. That marketplace remit, present from the first announcement, distinguishes the title from a pure news site and explains its close involvement in the industry's own institutions.

Audience and Reach

Space Connect's audience is Australia's space workforce and the ecosystem around it: engineers, executives and founders in space companies from primes to start-ups; officials at the Australian Space Agency, CSIRO and defence; researchers and students; and suppliers in telecommunications, satellite services, energy, mining, transport, agriculture and disaster management — the eligibility spread the brand itself uses for its awards.

Momentum's group-level claims about its communities — that the business connects over a million professionals across its finance, space and defence, real estate, legal, accounting and other verticals — appear on Space Connect's own LinkedIn profile and are the publisher's claims, not measurements of this title. No audited audience figure for Space Connect alone has been published. The concrete, checkable indicators of reach are institutional: an awards program that organisers said drew 131 finalists across 30 categories in 2026, in its seventh instalment, and a summit entering its fifth year in 2026 with more than 70 speakers — participation numbers reported by Momentum Media and its event coverage, and best read in that light.

Digital Presence

The website is updated daily and offers a subscription for breaking news, insights and market intelligence delivered each day, with registration governing full access. The Space Connect Podcast, catalogued by Listen Notes from July 2019 and running to well over 100 episodes, tells the stories of the people and businesses shaping the industry; hosted by Adam Thorn, its episodes have included panels of Australian astronauts recorded at the summit, interviews with spaceport and launch company founders, and discussions of the lunar rover program and asteroid risk, distributed through Apple Podcasts, Spotify and other platforms.

The brand maintains an active social footprint under the SpaceConnectHQ handle on X, Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn, plus a YouTube channel carrying podcast and summit content, including the Contested Ground series shared with Momentum's defence brands. Its two flagship events anchor the calendar in Sydney: the Australian Space Summit & Exhibition, held on 17–18 June 2026 at the Hyatt Regency Sydney in its fifth year with Space Centre Australia as principal partner and a speaker roster led by former prime minister Scott Morrison, astronaut Eric Philips OAM and Space Centre Australia founder James Palmer; and the Australian Space Awards, whose 2026 finalists spanned 14 individual and 16 group categories, again with Space Centre Australia as principal partner.

Ownership and Organisation

Space Connect is owned and published by Momentum Media, the Sydney business media and events company established in 2005, which began in mortgage and finance communications before assembling a portfolio of vertical brands — The Adviser, Lawyers Weekly, Accountants Daily, Australian Aviation, Defence Connect and Cyber Daily among them — as part of the Momentum Markets group. Company profiles list Space Connect's headquarters as North Sydney, New South Wales, with directors of the parent including Alex Whitlock and Phillip Tarrant; Tarrant remains the group's senior figure for defence and space and was the brand's launch spokesman.

Within Momentum, Space Connect is run by a small specialist team — editor Adam Thorn, senior journalist Robert Dougherty and colleagues — drawing on the group's shared events, commercial and podcast infrastructure and on the defence desk led by Steve Kuper. That structure is typical of Momentum's vertical model: a recognisable editorial identity per sector, produced by a compact masthead and monetised centrally through advertising, sponsorship, subscriptions and ticketed events.

Contact and Availability

Space Connect is available free to browse at spaceconnectonline.com.au, with a subscription offered through the site's subscribe page for daily delivery of its news and market intelligence, and its podcast available through the website and major podcast platforms. Tickets and nominations for the Australian Space Summit & Exhibition and the Australian Space Awards are handled through the brand's events pages, with the summit staged annually in Sydney. The publication lists no print edition and no public street address beyond its publisher's Sydney operation; contact runs through the website and Momentum Media. Consistent with this directory's policy, the public business email field for this listing is left blank.