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Honeysuckle Creek Tracking Station
Honeysuckle Creek Tracking Station (Honeysuckle Creek) was a NASA Earth station in Australia near Canberra, and was instrumental to the Apollo Program. The station was opened in 1967 and closed in 1981. History Honeysuckle Creek – with a 26m dish (now relocated and decommissioned) – is renowned as the station which received and relayed to the world the first televised footage of astronaut Neil Armstrong setting foot on the Moon on 20 July 1969. Apart from television pictures, Honeysuckle Creek and Canberra Deep Space Communications Complex (Tidbinbilla) had communication and telemetry contact with the ''Eagle'' lunar and ''Columbia'' command modules. Much of this was dramatized as involving Parkes Observatory (Parkes) in the 2000 Australian film ''The Dish''. In fact, Parkes received only the landing footage. Six hours later, the first steps on the Moon were transmitted from Honeysuckle Creek. Although the Parkes antenna was more powerful, the angle of its dish – a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. NASA was established in 1958, succeeding the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), to give the U.S. space development effort a distinctly civilian orientation, emphasizing peaceful applications in space science. NASA has since led most American space exploration, including Project Mercury, Project Gemini, the 1968-1972 Apollo Moon landing missions, the Skylab space station, and the Space Shuttle. NASA supports the International Space Station and oversees the development of the Orion spacecraft and the Space Launch System for the crewed lunar Artemis program, Commercial Crew spacecraft, and the planned Lunar Gateway space station. The agency is also responsible for the Launch Services Program, which provides oversight of launch operations and countdown management f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Australian Capital Territory
The Australian Capital Territory (commonly abbreviated as ACT), known as the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) until 1938, is a landlocked federal territory of Australia containing the national capital Canberra and some surrounding townships. It is located in southeastern Australian mainland as an enclave completely within the state of New South Wales. Founded after Federation as the seat of government for the new nation, the territory hosts the headquarters of all important institutions of the Australian Government. On 1 January 1901, federation of the colonies of Australia was achieved. Section 125 of the new Australian Constitution provided that land, situated in New South Wales and at least from Sydney, would be ceded to the new federal government. Following discussion and exploration of various areas within New South Wales, the ''Seat of Government Act 1908'' was passed in 1908 which specified a capital in the Yass-Canberra region. The territory was transferred to the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Apollo Program Facilities
Apollo, grc, Ἀπόλλωνος, Apóllōnos, label=genitive , ; , grc-dor, Ἀπέλλων, Apéllōn, ; grc, Ἀπείλων, Apeílōn, label=Arcadocypriot Greek, ; grc-aeo, Ἄπλουν, Áploun, la, Apollō, la, Apollinis, label=genitive, , ; , is one of the Olympian deities in classical Greek and Roman religion and Greek and Roman mythology. The national divinity of the Greeks, Apollo has been recognized as a god of archery, music and dance, truth and prophecy, healing and diseases, the Sun and light, poetry, and more. One of the most important and complex of the Greek gods, he is the son of Zeus and Leto, and the twin brother of Artemis, goddess of the hunt. Seen as the most beautiful god and the ideal of the ''kouros'' (ephebe, or a beardless, athletic youth), Apollo is considered to be the most Greek of all the gods. Apollo is known in Greek-influenced Etruscan mythology as ''Apulu''. As the patron deity of Delphi (''Apollo Pythios''), Apollo is an oracu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tom Reid (electrical Engineer)
Thomas Reid MBE (14 March 1927 – 2 October 2010) was the director of the Honeysuckle Creek Tracking Station outside Canberra, Australia, which in July 1969 transmitted live television of Neil Armstrong stepping onto the Moon to a world-wide audience of 600 million people. Early years Born in Glasgow, Scotland, Reid served in the Royal Navy from 1944 to 1947 and then obtained a first-class honours degree in electrical engineering from the University of Glasgow winning the Howe Prize in Electrical Engineering. Migrating to Australia in 1952, Reid served for five years as an electrical lieutenant in the Royal Australian Navy. Space tracking career Appointed officer-in-charge of Telemetry at the Woomera Rocket Range in 1958, Reid helped test British Medium-range ballistic missiles. The following year, he was put in charge of Woomera’s RCA AN/FPS-16 Instrumentation Radar which tracked NASA's Project Mercury spacecraft. After leaving Woomera in 1962, Reid became a senior lecturer ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Andrew Tink
Andrew Arnold Tink AM (born 13 July 1953) is a former Australian politician, having served as a member of the New South Wales Legislative Assembly for the Liberal Party from 1988 to 2007. He was in the shadow cabinet from 1995 until March 2006. He has written two political biographies, a third book on the events and political consequences of a fatal plane crash, a fourth on Australian history, culture and society in the 20th century and a fifth on the involvement of Honeysuckle Creek Tracking Station in the first moon landing. Since leaving politics, Tink has been appointed a visiting fellow and adjunct professor at Macquarie University, as a trustee of the Historic Houses Trust of New South Wales (Sydney Living Museums) and president of the Library Council of New South Wales. He is an honorary Doctor of Letters ''honoris causa'' from Macquarie University. Early life and family Tink was educated at Sydney Grammar School. He competed in sailing, for Australia against New Zea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
History Of The Deep Space Network
The forerunner of the Deep Space Network was established in January 1958, when JPL, then under contract to the U.S. Army, deployed portable radio tracking stations in Nigeria, Singapore, and California to receive telemetry and plot the orbit of the Army-launched Explorer 1, the first successful U.S. satellite. NASA (and the DSN by extension) was officially established on October 1, 1958, to consolidate the separately developing space-exploration programs of the US Army, US Navy, and US Air Force into one civilian organization. Origin in the 1950s On December 3, 1958, JPL was transferred from the US Army to NASA and given responsibility for the design and execution of lunar and planetary exploration programs using remotely controlled spacecraft. Shortly after the transfer NASA established the concept of the Deep Space Instrumentation Facility (DSIF) as a separately managed and operated communications system that would accommodate all deep space missions, thereby avoiding th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Canberra Deep Space Communication Complex
The Canberra Deep Space Communication Complex (CDSCC) is a satellite communication station, part of the Deep Space Network of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), located at Tidbinbilla in the Australian Capital Territory. Opened in 1965, the complex was used for tracking the Apollo Lunar Module, and along with its two sister stations at Goldstone, California and Madrid, Spain is now used for tracking and communicating with NASA's spacecraft, particularly interplanetary missions. Its DSS-43 antenna is the only antenna on Earth that can send commands to Voyager 2. It is managed in Australia by the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) for NASA’s Space Communications and Navigation program (SCaN) at NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C. Location The complex is located in the Paddys River (a tributary of the Cotter River) valley, about 20 km from Canberra in the Australian Capital Territory. The complex is part of the Deep Space Netw ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
OTC Satellite Earth Station Carnarvon
The OTC Satellite Earth Station Carnarvon, an Earth station in Australia, was established to meet the need for more reliable and higher quality communications for the Apollo program. NASA contracted Australia's Overseas Telecommunications Commission (OTC) "to provide an earth station near Carnarvon, Western Australia to link the NASA tracking station in that area to the control centre in the USA", also contracting COMSAT to launch three Intelsat-2 communications satellites. Television and NASA-assist operations The "sugar scoop" antenna became operational on 29 October 1966 when Intelsat-2A, the first of the three satellites launched, gave OTC and the Australian Broadcasting Commission a brief chance to test satellite television communications as the satellite drifted to ignominious failure over the Indian Ocean. On 24 November 1966, test patterns for the first live telecasts from Australia to England were successful. The next day, a live BBC television broadcast from a studi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Orroral Valley Tracking Station
The Orroral Valley tracking station, was Earth station in Australia, supported Earth-orbiting satellites, as part of NASA's Spacecraft Tracking and Data Acquisition Network (STADAN). It was located approximately 50 km south of Canberra, Australian Capital Territory (ACT), and was one of three tracking stations in the ACT, and seven in Australia. Construction of the site commenced shortly after site selection in 1963 and was completed in May 1965. It was home to a 26 m antenna and several smaller VHF and microwave frequency antennas. The main requirement of the station, as distinct from the long-range communication tasks of Tidbinbilla and Honeysuckle Creek, was to be able to quickly switch from supporting one satellite to another. The signal received from satellites in Earth orbit are relatively strong but view periods are short, a few minutes being typical. Many of the supported satellites used different systems for transmitting data, or for receiving commands so the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Carnarvon Tracking Station
The Carnarvon Tracking Station was an Earth tracking station in Australia, located 10 kilometres (6.2 miles) south of Carnarvon, Western Australia. It operated from 1963 until 1975, during which it supported the Gemini, Apollo and Skylab space programs. History The station was built in 1963 for use by NASA for the Gemini program, the second step for NASA's plan to put a human on the Moon. It replaced the Muchea Tracking Station and used some of the equipment from Project Mercury. The station also included an FPQ-6 precision tracking radar, a Spacecraft Tracking and Data Acquisition Network (STADAN) scientific satellite tracking facility, a planet Jupiter monitoring system, and a Solar Particle Alert Network (SPAN) facility. Together, these facilities formed the largest station in the NASA network outside mainland USA. After the conclusion of the Gemini program, the Tracking Station provided extensive support for the Project Apollo missions to the Moon. Because of Car ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Apollo 11 Missing Tapes
The Apollo 11 missing tapes were those that were recorded from Apollo 11's slow-scan television (SSTV) telecast in its raw format on telemetry data tape at the time of the first Moon landing in 1969 and subsequently lost. The data tapes were used to record all transmitted data (video as well as telemetry) for backup. To broadcast the SSTV transmission on standard television, NASA ground receiving stations performed real-time scan conversion to the NTSC television format. The moonwalk's converted video signal was broadcast live around the world on July 21, 1969 (2:56 UTC). At the time, the NTSC broadcast was recorded on many videotapes and kinescope films. Many of these low-quality recordings remain intact. As the real-time broadcast worked and was widely recorded, preservation of the backup video was not deemed a priority in the years immediately following the mission. In the early 1980s, NASA's Landsat program was facing a severe data tape shortage and it is likely the tapes we ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Australian Broadcasting Corporation
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) is the national broadcaster of Australia. It is principally funded by direct grants from the Australian Government and is administered by a government-appointed board. The ABC is a publicly-owned body that is politically independent and fully accountable, with its charter enshrined in legislation, the ''Australian Broadcasting Corporation Act 1983''. ABC Commercial, a profit-making division of the corporation, also helps to generate funding for content provision. The ABC was established as the Australian Broadcasting Commission on 1 July 1932 by an act of federal parliament. It effectively replaced the Australian Broadcasting Company, a private company established in 1924 to provide programming for A-class radio stations. The ABC was given statutory powers that reinforced its independence from the government and enhanced its news-gathering role. Modelled after the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), which is funded by a tel ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
