Satellite-Tracking Plan

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31727, 10 July 1968, Page 1

Satellite-Tracking Plan

(From Our Own Reporter) WELLINGTON, July 9. Agreement on the establishment of a Baker-Nunn satellitetracking camera station in New Zealand has been reached by the New Zealand and United States Governments. The Prime Minister (Mr Holyoake) Mid the agreement was recorded in an exchange of notes, dated today. The station will be at Mount John, near Lake Tekapo. Mr Holyoake said that the Baker-Nunn camera was a large and complex device and was one of the world’s most sensitive optical means of ob. serving artificial earth MtelUtes. The camera is capable of photographing a six-metre

sphere at the distance of the moon and of recording other images 3000 times more faint than can be seen by the naked eye. An extremely accurate timing system associated with the camera permits the position of Mtellites to be precisely fixed in relation to a known star background. The photographs from Baker-Nunn cameras cgn provide precise information about the orbits of satellites and can help plot orbits for the calibration of the other systems.

After an extensive reconnaisMnce the United States authorities requested permission to establish a camera station at Mount John, which is regarded as a very suitable site.

The University of Canterbury holds a lease of land at Mount John, where it has run, since 1963, an observatory to make important studies of Southern Hemisphere astronomy, In cooperation with the University of Pennsylvania. About two acres of this

site has been sub-leased to the United States Air Force, which will have responsibility for the camera station. Neither university will have any direct relationship with the project. All phases of the operation, including satellite tracking, photographic processing and results, as well as the general work of the station, will, however, be open to the New Zealand Government and to the University of Canterbury. “The information obtained from the station will be of considerable interest to such bodies as the D.5.1.R., the University of Canterbury and the National Space Research, Committee,” Mr Holyoake said. “The Government therefore welcomes the establishment of the Baker-Nunn station as a further example of the fruitful co-operation in scientific subjects between the United States and New Zealand, which has already been amply demonstrated in such diverse fields as Antarctic research and auroral and cosmic ray studies.”