J. A. Hill. Adelaide, South.Australia / commemorative envelopes
Australian Space Commemorative envelopes.
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WOOMERA 50th ANNIVERSARY Easter 1997. I also produced a limited edition of 100 sets of a two envelope set for the 50th anniversary of the Woomera Rocket Range. These envelopes are in addition to other's listed on my web_page produced for any trial or activity from the Woomera Rocket Range from 1987 onwards.
My report on the Woomera 50th anniversary celebrations.
NASA (two stage Black Brant 1X sounding rockets) launched at Woomera Oct.-Nov. '95
A series of NASA sounding rocket experiments began this date to study the Large Megallanic Cloud (LNC), the closest galaxy next to our own milky way. The rockets were carrying instruments to gather information on hot gases, stars, interstellar gas and dust particles, which are the basic building blocks of planets in our in our neighboring galaxy. The commemorative envelopes produced for those trials were of a limited edition of 100 sets of six envelopes. There were seven launches planned (one a week for seven weeks) for the series but owing to fiscal changes in the U.S budget only six rockets were launched. Two of these were launched within the final week. NASA and three universities from the USA were involved in the launches that took place from Woomera between the 25th of October and the 21st of November 1995.
WOOMERA SOUTH AUSTRALIA.
Spaceport Woomera Pty a wholly- owned subsidiary of Kistler Aerospace Corporation of the US was scheduled to open the Worlds first commercial fully operational spaceport at Woomera but I have been informed that this project has now been put on hold due to restructuring. This article was updated on the 12th November 2004.
AUSROC II envelope.
WOOMERA, SOUTH AUSTRALIA AND THE AUSROC II-2 PROJECT.
By Mr. J A Hill
The Australian Space Research Institute (ASRI) commenced using the Woomera rocket range to launch a series of liquid fuelled rockets called AUSROC. AUSROC11 was the second in a line of liquid fueled experimental rockets aimed at developing and enhancing the technical skills of Australian engineers and scientists with a keen interest in space based technology. The Ausroc program initially started in 1988 as a private amateur adventure with the design, development and launch of Ausroc 1. Ausroc 11 on a final year engineering thesis project in 1889 with the support of Monash University and many sponsors from industry. Ausroc 11 was built and taken to Woomera for launching on the 22nd October 1992 but due to a lox valve malfunction it blew up on the launch pad on that date. I had designed and printed two hundred Commemorative envelopes with a special stamp issue, a hundred of which were placed in the nose cone and a further one hundred in the main body of the rocket. Fortunately when the rocket blew up on the launcher all of the envelopes were retrieved undamaged. Despite the failure of that rocket the sponsors have continued to support the Ausroc Team and the rocket was upgraded rebuilt and launched as Ausroc 11-2 on the 26th May1995. I had produced a hundred envelopes for this rocket also, and these were placed in the nose cone. It was successfully launched but had a problem that was subsequently traced to a liquid oxygen fuel mixture problem. As a consequence of this the rocket failed to gain its planned height and landed heavily in a bomb-contaminated area of the range when it's parachute failed to open. My envelopes were still on the rocket but until the bomb squad had cleared the area we were not allowed to approach the drop zone. On the 4th July 1995 " Mark Blair " Ausroc's manager and myself had confirmation that we could go and recover Ausroc 11-2 from the Woomera Rocket Range as a path to the impact area has been cleared. We left for Koolymilka range with the RAAF recovery 4x4 vehicle and two other members of the Ausroc team arriving about 9am. We were then escorted to the impact area along a marked lane through the cleared bombing range. On arrival at the site it was noted that the main part of the rocket had impacted heavily into the ground at high speed. The tail portion had snapped off and was ejected about two metres from the main body. After digging out the remains of Ausroc from the ground my envelopes were found to be severely damaged as they had been crushed into the nose cone followed by the camera and telemetry equipment. Remnants of the envelopes and part of the drogue parachute are shown with metal fragments from the nose cone. The remains of the envelopes were put together and made into a limited edition of 67 sets. These sets were each put into commemorative folders along with autographed photo's and a copy of the Ausroc story. A quantity of what I call space rubble is left but is really too small to make up into folders. Also shown is the full set of Ausroc11 envelopes from the October1992 launch failure.
ALFLEX (Automatic Landing Flight Experiment) trials at Woomera. Set of 4 envelopes documenting the trials and those involved.
WOOMERA, SOUTH AUSTRALIA AND THE ALFLEX PROJECT.
By Mr. J A Hill
In 1997, Woomera, situated in South Australia's outback, celebrated its fiftieth anniversary as a rocket and missile testing range. During that time many stories had been written about this unique outpost in the desert, most of which dealt with the launching of America's giant Redstones, Britain's 'Blue Streak' and 'Black Arrow' rockets and the European 'ELDO' project, to name just a few. Activity quieted down during the late eighties when the last of the German / USA Skylark projects ceased, but Woomera was kept alive by minor military testing programs and by tourists who dropped in for a visit on their way to Alice Springs and the North. Further interest in rockets was again awakened by the Ausroc II and sighter rocket program, which used Woomera to launch its rockets in the October of 1992. This kept the media interested until Ausroc malfunctioned on the launch pad later that year. This failure did not deter the team however who carried on with the project, which led to the successful launching of Ausroc II-2 in the May of 1995. The Ausroc project is still alive with the formation of a new project mentioned in September 2003 that is called A2.5 (a scaled down version of Ausroc 111). Ausroc 2.5 was proposed as a rocket using much A3 technology, but simplified and scaled down so as to be more readily achievable in the short term.
At the time of my designing the Ausroc series of envelopes the person who had been responsible for producing most of these commemoratives had decided because of ill health to cease the practice, he is now deceased. As I had been collecting these items for many years whilst working on the range I decided to carry on to attempt to keep a record of any launch or trial activity from that time on. So when NASA decided to launch six Black Brants from the range in the same year I produced a limited edition of envelopes to record that event. One of the main reasons was to keep my own collection up to date and to have a selection to exchange with other collectors who were interested in collecting Woomera cancellations.
Limited editions of seventy-five sets of a four-envelope set were later made for the trials of Nal Nasda's Space plane HOPE. Australia had just issued a set of four aircraft stamps, which seemed to match the proposed color scheme on the envelopes very well. I therefore bought a bulk issue of those before they were withdrawn from sale. Then, assisted by my son Steven we went ahead and produced this edition of four envelopes for this trial sequence. A set of these envelopes was sent to the Space Office for approval and after a minor name change was found to be acceptable. The four envelope set in full color includes photographs and illustrations of equipment used in the trials
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