From a big warehouse on the Gold Coast, Adam Gilmour is busy building rockets.

"We take satellites up into space. A good way to think of us is like a bus to space," he explained.

His rocket company is one of the startups now dominating Australia's small but growing space sector.

"I was a banker at Citibank but always loved space," he told 7.30.

Mr Gilmour said he taught himself the basics of rockets in his spare time before founding the company.

"I used to travel a lot, so I would download research papers in the lounge before I got on the plane, and then I would read them for the 10 hours it took to go to London," he said.

"By the time I landed in London I was an expert on whatever I was reading about, whether it was ablative systems or rocket nozzles or thermocouples. And I kept learning and reading, and then by 2015 I think I was confident enough to leave what I was doing and start the company."

Now his company Gilmour Space Technologies is preparing to launch a rocket they're building in their Gold Coast workshop and also looking at sending a rocket into the Moon's orbit. 

'Everybody uses space technology every day'

Mr Gilmour is part of the changing face of the space industry, where startups and private companies like SpaceX and Virgin Galactic are replacing the once-dominant national space agencies of global superpowers like the United States and Russia. 

Australia played a critical part in the golden era of space exploration in the 1960s, with the launch of rockets out of Woomera in the South Australian outback in 1967 and the use of the Parkes Telescope to transmit man's first steps on the Moon two years later.

But since those glory days, the industry in Australia has been in somewhat of a lull.

Space enthusiasts hope that is set to change with smaller private space companies leading the way.

"It's very different now than it was 20 or 30 years ago, because in the past the space agencies tried to do everything themselves, and build the launch vehicles and the satellites themselves," Mr Gilmour said.

"Now they've realised it's much quicker and easier and cheaper to go to private industry and say, 'Please build me a rocket,' or 'Please take a satellite that I have to space.' And that's really driving the commercial market." 

Mr Gilmour said the industry has huge potential to grow in Australia due to our growing reliance on satellites for all facets of daily life.

"I think most people don't realise how much everybody uses space technology every day ... whether it's Google Maps, Uber autonomous vehicles, a lot of the farms use satellite data to determine if their crops are safe."

NASA launching more rockets in NT

The launch of a NASA rocket near the remote Northern Territory town of Nhulunbuy last week marked the first time the US space agency had launched a rocket from a commercial facility outside the United States.

And it's fuelled hopes that Australia's space industry is awakening from its long slumber.

"Australia is definitely back in the space race – and we've got a sector that's growing from strength to strength," said Enrico Palermo, the head of the Australian Space Agency.

However, he told 7.30 there was much more to do to harness Australia's full potential.

"In my perspective, we haven't grabbed the full opportunity that we have," he said.

"If you look overseas at other countries that have very vibrant, large space economies, it's clear that the government has played a very important role in stimulating the growth of that sector ... I think there are models overseas we can emulate here in Australia.

"But government's role goes beyond just purely dollars. You know, we need to set the vision, the aspiration for the nation ... We need a regulatory framework that encourages safety, but also encourages entrepreneurialism."

In a statement, a federal government spokesperson told 7.30 it had invested over $15 million into 43 companies over the past year and was streamlining regulations.

NASA scientist Max King has relocated to Nhulunbuy from his home in the US for a few months to oversee the launch of three rockets, which are being sent up to gather data on stars and other space matter.

"They're actually looking at X-ray emissions from a galactic phenomenon," he explained to 7.30.

"The other missions are looking at UV emissions."

He said it was over 10 years in the making, but the crew only gathered around 10 minutes of data while the rocket was in the atmosphere.

Mr King said Nhulunbuy's climate and its location 10 degrees south of the equator made it a perfect launching pad.

"The scientists have actually kind of expended the celestial targets they're able to look at from the northern hemisphere. And so they're very interested in launch locations in the southern hemisphere," he said.

"And Australia happens to offer a friendly government in a place where we can go and launch."

A second NASA rocket is set to launch from the Northern Territory tonight and the third and final on July 12.

It's NASA's first space mission in Australia this century but the team hopes it won't be the last.

"I think there's a pretty high chance we'll be back in the next three to five years," Mr King told 7.30.

Watch this story tonight on 7.30 on ABC TV and ABC iview.