Woomera Instrumented Range South Australia.
Updated 14th November 2002.
The Australian Space Research Institute ( ASRI ) small rocket program (SSRP) was initiated in the mid 1990's to provide Australian educational institutions from universities to primary schools with facilities to launch a high acceleration rocket payload at a very low cost. A large amount of Zuni rockets had been donated to ASRI a few years previously and the SSRP ( Small Sounding Rocket Program ) was formulated for the benefit of individuals, non-commercial organizations and foreign universities seeking assistance to launch their own vehicles.
ASRI continued to provide this small rocket program service this year also for the Institution of Engineers Australia and Kistler Aerospace Corporation as first prize in the annual " Kistler Space Endeavour Prize Launch " which took place at the Woomera Instrumented Range over the 2002 October long weekend. My covers were launched on Sunday the 6th October and not cancelled as they of course crashed.
The launch program was attended by travelers who had called in to Woomera whilst on their journey around the outback and also by a large group of members of the IEAUST ( Institute Engineers AUST. Also included were a group of School children and a teacher who had flown from their township in the distant State of Queensland. The children had won a competition the prize of which was : a trip to the Woomera Instrumented Range to compete in the Kistler Space Endeavour Prize Launch. They had chosen to fly a rather unique payload which consisted of a nest of Quail birds eggs. The idea being that on their return to Queensland they would try to hatch them out in an incubator to see if there had been any adverse reaction during the flight of the rocket. They were already feeling very apprehensive as to whether there would be any successful outcome to their project because they had been told to put the box containing the project sample through the Xray machine at the airport prior to boarding their flight for their journey to South Australia. However they were assured that there would be no damage to the eggs as a result of the security check.
Sunday, the day of the ' Kistler Space Endeavour Prize Launch ' started well when a large contingent of members of the public left the village area for the Range at 0930 hrs and arrived at the launch site at approximately 1015hrs. Everyone was allowed to proceed to ASRI's Control and launch Center and they were shown over the rockets and payloads and informed of the program for the day's events. Soon after they all left for the viewing area to await the commencement of the launch project.
The day although fine was very windy and strong storm fronts moving swiftly across the launch area led to some lengthy delays. We were all told that the wind would not affect the launching of the rockets but there was a danger of lightning strikes which for safety reasons had to be taken into account.
The days launchings seemed to go very well but at the completion of the days activities ASRI reported that : " Our official position is the campaign launched all rockets (two sighter, and three Zuni) successfully, unfortunately the recovery system on the three Zuni rockets were a new design and did not work correctly. We have recovered two of the rockets and are examining them to ensure the problem is fixed for next year, and we will return the flown payloads to the Kistler prize winners".
One of the rockets was recovered that day but the two others had buried themselves deeply in the ground and would need to be excavated at a later date. I had produced one hundred commemorative envelopes for this project and had placed fifty of these in each of the two custom nose cones of the Zuni rockets. At the date of writing this article (1st November) one rocket had been excavated from a depth of four metres and the squashed remains of the envelopes had been recovered but all other payloads were completely destroyed. Remnants of the other rocket had been recovered but no payloads and no nose cone. This had apparently gone much deeper into the rock layer of the desert surrounds and was lost.
ASRI propose to launch another Zuni in December of this year to test the rocket to correct the anomaly that occurred during the October launch campaign.
Previous Kistler space prize launches.
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