Tracking station 'open’

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 32861, 9 March 1972, Page 1

Tracking station 'open’

The United States Air Force will probably invite some demonstrators to look over the Baker-Nunn camera installation at Mount John on Sunday.

The Washdyke-Mount John Committee, supported by the University of Canterbury Students’ Association, is organising a protest against the presence of the satellite tracking station and will hold demonstrations this weekend at the station and at its Washdyke headquarters. The air attache at the United States Embassy (Lieu-tenant-Colonel P. K. Wilkinson) said yesterday that that station was open all the time to “seriously interested” visitors.

“We could not take a great number of people through the station; but we would probably invite a representative group.” Visitors to the station will not see through the communications room there. The Air Force has "classified” equipment in this room. “Air Defence Command is evaluating the need to have classified equipment in the station,” said Colonel Wilkinson yesterday. But as long as it is there we must observe the security requirements concerning this equipment.”

He said that all the observation information from the camera was made available to scientists if they wanted it, and no other equipment was used at Mount John for space observation. Some of the information gathered by the Air Force’s space detection and tracking system, of which the BakerNunn camera is part, is kept secret by the Air Force; but, according to Colonel Wilkinson, there is no classification of Baker-Nunn observations.

The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, Cambridge, Massachusetts, operates a world-wide network of 12 Baker-Nunn cameras. Another camera is operated by the Royal Canadian Air Force at Cold Lake, Alberta. The U.S.A.F. runs three stations in addition to the one at Mount John.

All contribute to the Space Detection and Tracking System. The programme was conceived and prepared before the launching of the first Russian sputnik. The U.S.A.F. cameras are also part of the Aerospace Defence Command’s “Spacetrack system.” Like the other Baker-Nunn cameras they can track satellites that are beyond the range of radar and, according to Air Force descriptions of the network, “provide highly accurate observations on selected satellites of particular

interest for scientific purposes.” Asked to describe the role of the cameras in tracking "hostile” satellites, Colonel Wilkinson said yesterday that they were not part of the air force’s anti-satellite system. "They are concerned with distant objects; they observe the decay of satellites, check on their parameters; and their information is needed to plan rocket launchings. "The information from the cameras is not instantaneously available. Sensitive objects in space, closer to the earth, are observable by radar. "The United States Air Force was given this job by the National Aeronautical and Space Administration

and the Baker-Nunn observations should not be confused with other, classified, parts of the spacetrack system,” he said;