[4] A government report from the Australian Senate Standing Committee on Economics noted that Australia was "missing out on opportunities" and recommended that an agency immediately be developed.

In response, a taskforce was gathered, which led to the establishment of the Expert Reference Group, co-funded by the federal Department of Industry, Innovation and Science.

[10] The case for a sovereign-owned agency, if not with sovereign launch facilities in the short term, was being made by think tanks such as Australian Strategic Policy Institute.

[11] On 25 September 2017, at the International Astronautical Congress in Adelaide, Senator Simon Birmingham announced that the Australian Government intended to create a national space agency following an expert reference group investigation led by Megan Clark, former chief executive of CSIRO.

[23] The agency has, beginning 2023, a working relationship with Space Centre Australia, which aims to develop launch facilities in Cape York Peninsula.

The Australian Space Agency is located in the McEwin Building on Lot Fourteen, a technology hub in Adelaide city centre.