European Launcher Development Organization muted in 1962 / 1971. This consortium was made up of members of the following countries: Britain the Senior Partner, then France, Germany, Italy, Belgium, Holland and Australia. The group commenced operations in 1963 with the first launch of the Blue Streak on the 5th June 1964. LF2 on the 20th October 1964. F3 followed on the 22nd March 1965. F4-E1 on the 24th May1966, F5 on the 15th November 1966. F6-1 on the 4th August 1967, F6-2 the 6th Dec 1967, F7 on the 30th November 1968. F8 on the 3rd July 1969, the tenth development known as F9 was launched on the 12th June 1970. This was the final test in the Third Phase of the programme. The project then moved to the ELDO equatorial launching base in French Guiana where Europa 11 F11 and F12 trials were to be conducted. F11 was launched on the 5th November 1971 but the second stage exploded before separation and this launch was deemed unsuccessful so the ELDO trials ceased with that launch. Britain pulled out in1971and in 1973 the ELDO programme was abandoned. ESRO set up in the early seventies then took over new activities and replaced Europa with Ariane. The first launch of Ariane took place from this base in 1979. Pictures show the equatorial launch base French Guiana, the F11 on launcher and lift-off of the rocket
I have now been able to complete my collection of all of the envelopes in the ELDO project carried out at the Woomera Instrumented Range. I also have two commemorative envelopes for the F11 launch that took place in Kourou in French Guiana. I also have several envelopes relating to launches on the following dates. 12th December 1970, 6th October 1971, 13th June 1972, 3rd October 1972, 10th September 1973, 12th October 1973, 31st October 1973. If anyone knows whether these launches were related to the previous ELDO trials or belong to a new trial sequence I would appreciate any information so that I can adjust my information accordingly. Quite a variety of commemorative envelopes were made for the ELDO launches and I have included a picture of a variety of those that were made. I append an article recently sent to me by the former Range Safety Manager in the first week of May, 2004. This article was in reply to a person who had accessed my web page and emailed me seeking information on a proposed trip by himself as a member of a 4-wheel drive group planning to go into the Simpson Desert in the near future. A Section of this article is appended and may be of interest to other reader's of my ELDO story. During the previous twelve years or so we conducted a number of recovery expeditions into the Southern, Central and Northern Desert to recover a number of artifacts from the larger rockets launched from Woomera during its heyday of the 1960's. Of these were Wresat, Europa F4 and Europa F5. We conducted the Wresat and F4 expeditions independent from other groups but Dick Smith who established the co_ordinates for Wresat and conducted some local airial reconnaissance regarding F4 assisted us. Regarding F5: we conducted this expedition in conjunction with a group from Alice Springs who arranged the necessary access approvals. All that remains in the desert is one Rolls Royce RZ2 motor, a heap of stainless steel confetti and the conical 1st and 2nd stage adapter. There may also be an instrumentation bay either intact or broken up. The remains of F5, F6/1, F6/2, F7, and F8, are all located in the Northern Territory. Some being on Aboriginal Lands and some on Pastoral properties. The nearly complete remains of the Rolls Royce motor from the F5 launch vehicle that was launched on the 15th November 1966 including the Coralee section were found in the Simpson Desert. They have been returned to a new permanant display in the new Woomera Heritage Centre situated at the Oasis Club building adjacent to the WoomeraTheatre.
WRESAT. (Weapons Research Establishment Satellite) launched using a donated Redstone Rocket. WRE and the University of Adelaide in South Australia designed and launched their own satellite within a very short time (eleven months) to successful orbit on the 29th Nov 1967. It remained in orbit for five days (73 orbits) transmitting data to the NASA global tracking network. It stayed aloft however for a total of forty-two days completing 642 orbits. The remains of this rocket have been recovered as previously mentioned in this article and are displayed in the missile park adjoining the Woomera Heritage Centre. A small number of envelopes were made for this launch : the two shown are a small selection of the type produced for this event. (1) with a catchet depicting a world globe with NSE and West on the left of the envelope in pink which is quite scarce. This may be a commercial type of envelope and was not produced by anyone known by me. No (2) envelope as shown has a gold trumpet in a gold leaf setting within a map of Australia. Another type has a picture of a tree with a Kookaburra sitting on a branch with a kangaroo standing beneath the tree. All of these have the special circular post cancel with a picture of the satellite in the bottom of the circle. All of the envelopes pictured are of a limited number of a quantity not known to me.
FALSTAFF. HRV. Hypersonic Research Vehicle. There were nine launches of this rocket and a limited number of commemorative envelopes were made but none seen by me other than the one of the 1st October1969 launch.
TURANA. A Remote Controlled Pilotless Drone adapted from the Ikara Anti Submarine Weapon as installed in RAN ships. Some covers were made for this trial. There were about eight launchings between 1969 and 1971 and the envelopes were post cancelled at Jervis Bay. Very limited envelope issue for some launchings.
The Skylark Sounding Rocket Programme.
At 05.00 UTC, on the 2nd May 2005, the Swedish sounding rocket MASER 10 was launched from Swedish Space Corporation's launching facility Esrange, outside Kiruna in the north of Sweden. By that, the British rocket motor Skylark has completed its final mission. All indications show that the scientific objectives have been fulfilled.
I accessed this message from the Swedish Space Organisation web-page with reference to the last Skylark launch. The vehicle reached an apogee of 250 kilometres at a top speed of approx 2 km/sec.
This had been a true British Success story with Europe's most versatile and reliable, scientific research upper atmosphere rocket.
It was the world's longest running space programme spanning nearly fifty years to its conclusion in 2005. There had been over 441 firings of this rocket, most of them at the Instrumented Range in Australia's outback and nearly all had been successful.
During its trial period the Skylark had been launched in about eight countries of the World, namely Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Norway, Spain, Sardinia, Wales and finally in Esrange Kiruna in Northern Sweden. The only two Earth resources payloads were launched from Argentina in 1973. The Germans first used Skylarks when they launched three in Huelva in South West Spain for their National Programme.
The Skylark was designed in 1954 and first launched in Aberporth in Wales.
It was then called the CTV5 series 111 (Control Test Vehicle) before its name change in 1956. Note that the name of birds featured well in the Skylark programme i.e. Goldfinch, Raven, Cuckoo, and Stonechat motors.
The Family of Skylark Sounding Rockets.
The first rocket Skylark (5) was a single staged rocket propelled by a large solid motor called Raven.
This was the main propulsion unit on all Skylarks but about ten variants with different characteristics appeared later.
Skylark (7) was a 2 stage rocket using the Goldfinch and Raven 6A motors.
Skylark (12) used Goldfinch, and Raven motors the same as Skylark seven but with an added Cuckoo motor.
Skylark (17) used the Stonechat Mage 2.
The following information researched by Dr Ross Smith shows the engines used in some of the early vehicles.
Raven-1 Motor 13/02/1957 SLO1
Raven-1a Motor 13/02/1957SLO2
Raven-2 Motor 17/04/1958 SLO7
Raven-2a Motor 05/06/1958 SLO22
Raven-2 & Cuckoo-1 Motors 12/04/1960 SL51 (1ST 2 Stage rocket)
Raven-2b Motor 05/04/1961 SL22
Raven-5a Motor 05/02/1962 SL35B
Raven-5c Motor 05/03/1962 SL66
Raven-5 Motor 05/07/1962 SL164
Raven-7 Motor 13/11/1962 SL114
Rave -6 Motor 04/12/1962 SL166
Raven-Motor 6a & Goldfinch motor 08/02/1968 SL583A
Raven-11 & Goldfinch-2 motors 12/05/1976 SL1115 the 250th.
The Skylark launcher used on the Woomera Instrumented Range was very basic being constructed from old Bailey bridge panels weighing 35 tons and was shipped from England then transported by road to the Woomera Range.
The first Woomera Skylark launch was on the 13th February 1957 (SL01) in support of the "International Geophysical Year ".
The second Skylark (SL02) was fired in May 1957 but this was a performance test only with no payloads. Twenty two more rockets were tested before a two stage motor was introduced.
NASA had four launches at Woomera in 1961 to investigate Ultra Violet Radiation in Space.
In 1965 the Science Research Council was established and assumed the duties of the Space Research Steering Group.
In April 1965 seven Skylark rockets were fired in one night, a record that has never been equalled.
According to my records these were as follows. SL 464 at 0903 hrs, SL 363 at 1109 hrs, SL 364 at 1225 hrs, SL 461 at 1356 hrs, SL 462 at 1619 hrs and SL 463 at 1756 hrs and SL 362 at 2040 hrs.
In the September of 1965 the Skylark celebrated its 100th launch.
The 150th was launched in April 1967 the 200 on the 15th October 1970.
February 1968 saw a larger version of the Skylark with a Goldfinch motor with a Raven 6A motor installed.
Also in 1968 the first launch from the ESRO constructed rocket range took place at Estrange near Kiruna in Northern Sweden.
The greater number of skylark projects however took place on the Woomera Instrumented Range in Woomera's Outback in South Australia (over 250).
In the January of 1969 British Aircraft Corporation took over the running of the Skylark programme from Aerodynamics. Then in 1971 German participation commenced at Woomera and a record 35 skylark launches was recorded. In September 1971 we saw highlights of the Skylark trials with the testing of x-ray sources with the Moon passing in front of the X-ray source, a rare event in twenty years.
There were approximately 250 skylark launchings between 1957 / 1978.
The 250th Skylark (SL1115) was fired at 2020hrs on the 12th May 1976 and involved the largest Skylark to that date using Raven-11 and Goldfinch motors.
On the 2nd November 1972 Skylark SL 95 was launched from the Woomera Instrumented Range. This was a joint project Australia/ (ESRO) European Space Research Organisation to study of x-ray from (Pulsam (France) x-ray imaging of sun on photographic film space res lab Utrecht (Belgium).
This was the last of the sounding rocket programme of ESRO and the commemorative envelope was produced for the German team only and very few survived in Australia.
Skylark performed many different functions and carried a variety of experimental packages. It contrived to be Woomera's longest running and most successful project. In its final years it was used to photograph the earth from high altitudes in resource assessment programmes.
Activities on the Woomera Instrumented Range slowed down in the late seventies and early eighties. In August 1987 however saw the start of a Scientific Sounding Rocket $10 million upgrade programme. The first launch involved 11 sounding rockets and one British Skylark. Trials were to study Super Nova 1987A at an altitude of 265 kilometres. This was a successful West German- Australia Skylark CC10 launch.
The 1987 programme was the last Skylark launching from the Woomera Instrumented Range and was the End of an Era for this very fine useful rocket.
With the final launch in Sweden in 2005 this brought to a close of one of the world's most successful Upper Atmosphere Sounding Rocket programmes over a period of fifty years.
Commemorative envelopes were produced for most of the skylark launchings, the first in 1959. At first there were a limited number made varying from about 20 to 250. Later issues were produced in greater numbers however; I have a complete list of the launchings of this vehicle but not of the number of envelopes produced for each launch sequence.
I thought that it was only fitting that a commemorative envelope should be produced for this special occasion and so I made a limited edition of fifty for this event too. I was able to get some special stamps suitable for this cover that matched my graphics.
