BAS Observer November 2017

NOVEMBER 2017 13 exploration of the Solar System. It was the station responsible for monitoring the final hours of the Cassini mission to Saturn, which concluded with the spacecraft’s death-dive into the planet’s atmosphere on 15th September. Defence focus, and WRESAT Defence-related space research commenced at Woomera in 1 9 58 with the Black Knight and Jabiru programs. Investigating nuclear missile warhead design, materials and re-entry phenomena, defence research programs continued until just before the termination of the Joint Project in 1 9 80. Particularly important to the Australian space story was the US-led SPARTA Project (1 9 66–67): the generous donation of a spare launch vehicle from this program enabled the launch of WRESAT (Weapons Research Establishment Satellite), Australia’s first satellite. The WRESAT satellite under construction in a WRE laboratory. ( Image courtesy of Defence Science and Technology Group ) With a launch vehicle available, WRESAT was designed, constructed and launched in only eleven months: a significant achievement in itself. A collaboration between the WRE and the University of Adelaide, WRESAT’s scientific instrument package was derived from the Australian upper atmosphere sounding rocket programs and helped to corroborate their findings. Launched on 27th November, 1 9 67, WRESAT gave Australia entry into the exclusive ‘space club’ of countries that had orbited a national satellite. At the end of its first decade of space activity, Australia had launched its own satellite, while a Melbourne University student-built amateur radio satellite awaited launch in the USA. Continued on page 20 WRESAT was launched from Woomera in 1 9 67. ( Image courtesy of Defence Science and Technology Group )