Significant new Woomera station

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32450, 10 November 1970, Page 23

Significant new Woomera station

• (N.Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright) SYDNEY, November 8. A top-secret s3m space defence station nearing completion at Waomera, in the desert of South Australia, will control American satellites which will spy on Russia and China, the Sydney “Sunday Telegraph” reported today.

The first satellite in the series, code-named “Project 647,” was launched in secrecy before dawn from Cape Kennedy on Friday. The 18001 b satellite, put into orbit by a 12-storey-high Titan 3 rocket, will give the United States up to 30 minutes warning of any missile attack launched on it by Russia or China. Defence sources in Canberra last night confirmed that the satellite would be controlled through the Woomera base, the “Sunday Telegraph” reported. “This is the first indication

Australians have ever been given of the role of the station, on which work was started only last year. The station is so vital that only 18 months was allocated for it to be built. The “Sunday Telegraph” reported that the Australian Federal Government has refused to discuss the operation of the Australian station beyond announcing last April that a “space communications station for defence purposes” was to be built jointly by Australia and the United States at Woomera. But defence experts say, there is no doubt the Woomera base will be able to receive messages from the

United States military satellites and transmit commands to them. This would also mean that it could be used to activate space weapons, it said. The secret Woomera base is believed to have a staff of between 250 and 300 Australians and Americans. No indication has ever been released of Australia’s share of the s3m cost of building it. The site occupies about eight acres at Woomera but there are several square miles of open space around it “to prevent electrical interference.”