Commemorative envelopes were made for the SPARTA Project that used the Black Knight and Redstone rockets but these were few in number. The Redstone rocket was used in the Sparta project that commenced in 1966/7, and approximately nine of these were launched in these ( Sparta Trials ). This project followed on from the Dazzle program that used the Black Knight rockets. The Sparta project was a co-operative effort between England, the USA and Australia in a Re-entry research program carried out from the Woomera Rocket Range. The Redstone Rocket was a three stage rocket a Redstone booster burning alcohol in liquid oxygen carrying above it two small propellant stages. This rocket was first used as Jupiter C to launch Explorer 1 on January 31st 1958. One type of envelope featured a British soldier meeting an Aboriginal with "First Sparta Launch" printed in red
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HAD rockets (High Altitude Density ) were launched as early as October 1961 and the trials of this type of rocket continued until late 1969. There were a few envelopes made but I have only seen two of those produced for the launchings in 1967 and 1969.
HAT. (High Altitude Test) rocket an Upper Atmosphere Research Vehicle and about 75 were launched, some as early as 1962. A very limited number of envelopes were made and I have only seen one that was produced for the July 1969 launch.
HASP an Upper Atmosphere Research Vehicle ( High Altitude Sounding Projectiles or Foils ) There were about 100 of these launched between 1970 / 72 for the Bureau of Meteorology. Quite a lot of envelopes with the project number of the rocket printed on the envelope ( HASP 16 ) for instance were produced for most of the trials of those launches.
AEROBEE. A NASA and Goddard Flight Center joint Australian project. Performing a variety of upper atmospheric tests and capable of reaching heights from 100 miles up to 350 miles. The tests were to study Xray Spectrums of stars etc. Approximately 17 successful launchings were carried out from the Woomera Instrumented Range between 1970 and 1977. A variety of envelopes were made for this rocket one of which features an oval cachet with a kangaroo inserted flying a rocket, three specimens illustrated. Others have an oblong cachet with a picture of a rocket displayed in a variety of colours. This rocket had no guidance system, as the fins were preset to give a slight spin to facilitate aerodynamic stability during flight. The experiments were contained in the nose cone. Individual rockets varied in length from 25 to 57 feet and the smallest could carry a 200lb load whilst the largest could carry 800 pounds. My thanks go to the Public Affairs Office White Sands Missile Range for the launch photo and information.
AERO MACH. This was known as a HRV ( hypersonic research vehicle). One launching in 1966 and eight launchings between 1968 and 1970. No envelopes were produced to my knowledge for these trials.
The NASA Deep Space Tracking Station Island Lagoon. Area pictured with the dish and the " Baker Nunn " optical tracking system. This system using an F-1 Schmidt telescope with a 50.8mm focal length as an optical system was very effective. During its lifetime at Island Lagoon it was used to photograph the Vanguard satellite in its 4000-km orbit. It also photographed the Explorer series and other manned spacecraft in the Mercury program. Several envelope types were made for this facility. I visited this site in October 2000 when I attended the Kistler Space Endeavour Prize launch at Woomera. This visit was the first time that I been back to Island Lagoon since the late sixties a few years before it had closed down for ever.
I have updated the 'Island Lagoon photographs' section of my web-page with a selection of old and new pictures of the ' The Woomera Space Communications Center' which was located in an isolated area near a dried up salt lake 14 miles south west of the Woomera village in the far north of South Australia.
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