OTC Satellite Earth Station Carnarvon
Encyclopedia
Overseas Telecommunications Commission
The Overseas Telecommunications Commission was established by an Act of Parliament in August 1946. It inherited facilities and resources from Amalgamated Wireless Australasia Limited and Cable & Wireless, and was charged with responsibility for all international telecommunications services into,...
Satellite Earth Station Carnarvon was established to meet the need for more reliable and higher quality communications for NASA's
NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is the agency of the United States government that is responsible for the nation's civilian space program and for aeronautics and aerospace research...
Apollo Moon project. NASA
NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is the agency of the United States government that is responsible for the nation's civilian space program and for aeronautics and aerospace research...
contracted Australia's Overseas Telecommunications Commission
Overseas Telecommunications Commission
The Overseas Telecommunications Commission was established by an Act of Parliament in August 1946. It inherited facilities and resources from Amalgamated Wireless Australasia Limited and Cable & Wireless, and was charged with responsibility for all international telecommunications services into,...
(OTC) "to provide an earth station near Carnarvon, Western Australia
Carnarvon, Western Australia
Carnarvon is a coastal town situated approximately 900 kilometres north of Perth, Western Australia. It lies at the mouth of the Gascoyne River on the Indian Ocean. The popular Shark Bay world heritage area lies to the south of the town and the Ningaloo Reef lies to the north...
to link the NASA tracking station
Carnarvon Tracking Station
The Carnarvon Tracking Station in Western Australia was a tracking station 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...
in that area to the control centre in the USA", also contracting the COMSAT
COMSAT
The Communications Satellite Corporation is a global telecommunications company, based in the USA, and with branches in Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, Mexico, Peru, Venezuela and several other countries in the Americas. It is present also in Turkey...
Corporation to launch three Intelsat
Intelsat
Intelsat, Ltd. is a communications satellite services provider.Originally formed as International Telecommunications Satellite Organization , it was—from 1964 to 2001—an intergovernmental consortium owning and managing a constellation of communications satellites providing international broadcast...
-2 communications satellites.
TV and NASA-assist operations
The ‘sugar scoop’ antenna became operational on 29 October 1966 when IntelsatIntelsat
Intelsat, Ltd. is a communications satellite services provider.Originally formed as International Telecommunications Satellite Organization , it was—from 1964 to 2001—an intergovernmental consortium owning and managing a constellation of communications satellites providing international broadcast...
-2A, the first of the three satellites launched, gave OTC and the ABC a brief chance to test satellite TV communications as the satellite drifted to ignominious failure over the Indian Ocean
Indian Ocean
The Indian Ocean is the third largest of the world's oceanic divisions, covering approximately 20% of the water on the Earth's surface. It is bounded on the north by the Indian Subcontinent and Arabian Peninsula ; on the west by eastern Africa; on the east by Indochina, the Sunda Islands, and...
. On 24 November 1966, test patterns for the first-ever live telecasts from Australia to England were successful. The next day, a live BBC television broadcast from a studio in London featured interviews linking UK families with their British migrant relatives standing in Robinson Street, Carnarvon.
The ‘sugar scoop’ became famous again on 21 July 1969, the day of the Apollo 11
Apollo 11
In early 1969, Bill Anders accepted a job with the National Space Council effective in August 1969 and announced his retirement as an astronaut. At that point Ken Mattingly was moved from the support crew into parallel training with Anders as backup Command Module Pilot in case Apollo 11 was...
moon landing, relaying Neil Armstrong
Neil Armstrong
Neil Alden Armstrong is an American former astronaut, test pilot, aerospace engineer, university professor, United States Naval Aviator, and the first person to set foot upon the Moon....
's first steps on the Moon from NASA's Honeysuckle Creek Tracking Station
Honeysuckle Creek Tracking Station
Honeysuckle Creek was a NASA tracking station near Canberra, Australia, which played an important role in supporting Project Apollo. The station was opened in 1967 and closed in 1981....
, Canberra
Canberra
Canberra is the capital city of Australia. With a population of over 345,000, it is Australia's largest inland city and the eighth-largest city overall. The city is located at the northern end of the Australian Capital Territory , south-west of Sydney, and north-east of Melbourne...
, to Perth
Perth, Western Australia
Perth is the capital and largest city of the Australian state of Western Australia and the fourth most populous city in Australia. The Perth metropolitan area has an estimated population of almost 1,700,000....
's TV audience via Moree earth station - the first live telecast into Western Australia.
The OTC station’s eight years of communications support for the Carnarvon Tracking Station
Carnarvon Tracking Station
The Carnarvon Tracking Station in Western Australia was a tracking station 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...
began on 4 February 1967, three weeks after Intelsat-2B was launched. A larger parabolic antenna was commissioned in late 1969 to upgrade the support for the later Apollo missions. OTC continued to provide communications support for NASA
NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is the agency of the United States government that is responsible for the nation's civilian space program and for aeronautics and aerospace research...
space programs until the NASA station
Carnarvon Tracking Station
The Carnarvon Tracking Station in Western Australia was a tracking station 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...
closed early in 1975. Thereafter it tracked some NASA missions on its own account.
Contract tracking operations
During OTC's last years of operation in Carnarvon, multiple tracking contracts were completed including:- prime responsibility for controlling the European Space AgencyEuropean Space AgencyThe European Space Agency , established in 1975, is an intergovernmental organisation dedicated to the exploration of space, currently with 18 member states...
(ESA) Giotto missionGiotto missionGiotto was a European robotic spacecraft mission from the European Space Agency, intended to fly by and study Halley's Comet. On 13 March 1986, the mission succeeded in approaching Halley's nucleus at a distance of 596 kilometers....
probe which sampled the tail of Halley’s Comet (the larger dish’s sole claim to fame); - launch support for ESA missions and for the Indian Space Agency’s first satellite;
- tracking of German TV and communication satellites;
- assistance with the launch and orbital parking of Meteorsat for Africa;
- guiding the Marecs communications satellite;
- and finally, in February 1987, monitoring the launch of the Japanese geosynchronous marine observation satellite, MOS-1MOS-1 (satellite)MOS-1 - "Marine Observation Satellite 1", also known as "Momo-1" - was Japan's first earth observation satellite. It was launched on 19 February 1987 on a N-2 rocket from Tanegashima....
.
Decommission
The station was decommissioned in April 1987, but the site is still 'actively' involved in solar scientific research, hosting a node of the Birmingham Solar Oscillations NetworkBirmingham Solar Oscillations Network
The Birmingham Solar Oscillations Network consists of a network of six remote solar observatories monitoring low-degree solar oscillation modes. It is operated by the High Resolution Optical Spectroscopy group of the School of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Birmingham, UK, in...
.
OTC Satellite Earth Station Carnarvon (fmr) is a registered heritage site with the Heritage Council of Western Australia. It has local, national and international cultural-heritage significance. A future Western Australian Space Museum is planned for the site.