Mt John to close in September

Press, 15 June 1983, Page 1

Mt John to close in September

The United States satel-lite-tracking station at Mount John will close at the end of September. The station was opened by the United States Air Force in 1969, which ran it until October, 1975. The enterprise was then taken over by the Bendix Field Engineering Corporation, which was responsible for the world-wide operation of Baker-Nunn tracking stations. The station’s camera was built by Joseph Nunn and Associates.

The station manager, Mr Robert Kaminski, said yesterday that staff at Mount John had known for some years of the closing. Its activities would be taken over by a station in Hawaii that had been working for about a year, he said.

Mr Kaminski said the Hawaiian station tracked satellites on video — a recent development. The Mount John equipment used film which then had to be developed.

Fifteen technicians are employed at Mount John. The work involved tracking 50 to 100 satellites per night in winter and a lesser number in summer, Mr Kaminski said.

It would probably be left to the New Zealand Government to decide the fate of the buildings after the staff moved out. Some of the staff at the station are former servicemen who were formerly employed in Naval Support Force work in the Antarctic. Others were already working for Bendix and were brought to New Zealand by the corporation, Mr Kaminski said. The technicians would

either move to other jobs within the Bendix corporation, or apply to remain in New Zealand and seek other work. '

The owner of the Tekapo Store, Mr Peter Maxwell, said that the closing of the station would not greatly affect the village. The station shares Mount John with an observatory run by the University of Canterbury, in conjunction with the Universities of Pennsylvania and Florida.

The information officer at Canterbury University, Mr Eric Beardsley, said that the university observatory was built on land leased from the Crown and that some of this leased land had been sub-leased to the Americans. This arrangement had later been modified, the Americans leasing direct from the Crown. The tracking station and observatory are about 400 m apart. The tracking station was embroiled in controversy in its early days over the siting of an American Omega base. In March, 1972, about 300 S' sters stormed Mount and blocked the access road with boulders. Another, less dramatic demonstration in January, 1975, involved 70 Resistance Riders. “Good riddance to bad rubbish” was the reaction of Mr Murray Horton, the spokesman for the Campaign Against Foreign Control in New Zealand to the announced closing of Mount John.

The observatory at Mount John had always been a part of the Pentagon war machine, said Mr Horton.

■ wT •• ■ • . Its function was to photo-graph-all orbiting space objectK identy '‘enemy” ,tt»e in-. formation the - - North- - American Aero-space Defence Command underneath: Cheyenne Mountain in Colo--radot', ; At first the Mount John statoh.hiid sheltered behind. of Canterbury, for a rental - of ft a year, said Mr Hor-..

Student protests had prompted the University Council to rescind this ar-, rangement, and it had been taken over by the Labour Government “We are delighted to see the transfer ot: the :sthti« It has strengthened our resolve to’ do something about, the other United States mili- . tary observatory being built At the . organbetlon'e annual meeting on Saturday action, aga&t “United States ' military installations" at Harewood and Black "BirthWihild be discussed, he said.