Tracking stations that could have been used in 1967 & 1971 for the launches of the WRESAT & Prospero, X3 satellites from Australia

Question

In relation to the question, How many satellites were orbited from Australia in total?

In November 1967 and October 1971 the WRESAT and Prospero, X3 satellites were launched from Woomera, South Australia (30° 19' South, 136° 32' East).

They were both launched in the northward polar orbit. Their flight paths would been over Australia's Gulf of Carpentaria, the Indonesian province of West Papua, approximately 850 km west of Guam, approximately 1400 km east of the Philippines, over the Japanese city of Nagoya, just to east of Vladivostok and over Khabarovsk in was then the Soviet Union.

What tracking stations, if any, would have been able to track the launch of the two satellites?

score 4 · Accepted Answer · answered May 26 '21 at 19:23

4

Partial answer -

For WRESAT at least, there was no tracking until the satellite passed back over Australia.

As the rocket disappeared over the horizon, all the WRE team could do was wait to hear if the flight had been successful and WRESAT had withstood the stresses of launch. Ninety-nine minutes after launch, a NASA tracking facility in Carnarvon, Western Australia, announced that WRESAT had successfully entered orbit. Australia was now a fully-fledged member of the space race.

WRESAT: When Australia beat the world to space

answered May 26 '21 at 19:23

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It's always possible a US Navy radar ship parked off the coast of Maine (the antipode of central Australia) "took a look" but didn't say anything about it; finding a source for that will be a challenge though. – uhoh May 26 '21 at 20:48
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This is very similar to Jodrell Bank being used to verify the Soviet Luna 2 & Luna 3 probes in 1959. – Fred May 27 '21 at 10:32
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@uhoh: a US naval ship parked off the coast of Maine would have been a cool verification. It appears the satellites would have come close to flying over (43.5 deg W) Thule Air Base in Greenland (68.7 deg W). – Fred May 27 '21 at 10:52
@Fred so Thule was built to keep an eye on the Australians; who'da thunk it! :-) fyi Why did Jodrell Bank assist the Soviet Union to collect data from their spacecraft in the mid 1960's? – uhoh May 27 '21 at 17:26
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@uhoh: That's very expensive military infrastructure, just for two satellites! Are they expecting more? Would they get confused by a Southern Launch? :-) – Fred May 28 '21 at 05:07

Tracking stations that could have been used in 1967 & 1971 for the launches of the WRESAT & Prospero, X3 satellites from Australia

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