WRESAT
Page Module:Infobox/styles.css has no content.Page Template:Infobox spaceflight/styles.css has no content.
| Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'Module:InfoboxImage/data' not found. Redstone Sparta rocket with WRESAT mounted on top (the black cone), Template:Ca November, 1967 | |
| Page Module:Infobox/styles.css has no content. | |
| SATCAT no. | Template:Wd |
|---|---|
| Mission duration | Data: 73 orbits Total: 642 orbits Total: ~42 days |
| Page Module:Infobox/styles.css has no content. | |
| Spacecraft properties | |
| Manufacturer | Weapons Research Establishment |
| Launch mass | 45 kilograms (99 lb) 72.5 kilograms (160 lb) (with the third stage)Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'Module:Footnotes/anchor_id_list' not found. |
| Page Module:Infobox/styles.css has no content. | |
| Start of mission | |
| Launch date | Template:Start-date UTC[1] |
| Rocket | Sparta |
| Launch site | Woomera LA-8 |
| Page Module:Infobox/styles.css has no content. | |
| End of mission | |
| Decay date | 10 January 1968 |
| Page Module:Infobox/styles.css has no content. | |
| Orbital parameters | |
| Reference system | Geocentric |
| Regime | Low Earth |
| Perigee altitude | 169 kmLua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'Module:Footnotes/anchor_id_list' not found. |
| Apogee altitude | 1245 kmLua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'Module:Footnotes/anchor_id_list' not found. |
| Inclination | 83.3° |
| Period | 99 minutesLua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'Module:Footnotes/anchor_id_list' not found. |
| Template:Succession links Template:Succession links | |
Script error: No such module "Check for conflicting parameters".
WRESAT, or Weapons Research Establishment Satellite, was Australia's first satellite. It was named after its designer, the Weapons Research Establishment. WRESAT was launched on 29 November 1967 using a modified American Redstone rocket with two upper stages, known as a Sparta, from the Woomera Test Range in South Australia. The Sparta (left over from the joint Australian-US-UK Sparta program) was donated by the United States.
After this launch, Australia became the seventh nation to have a satellite and the third nation to launch from its own territory,[2] after the Soviet Union and the United States (the UK's, Canada's and Italy's satellites were also launched on American rockets, unlike the French Astérix, which launched on an indigenous rocket out of Algeria[3]).
WRESAT was a cone-shaped satellite weighing 45 kilograms (99 lb), with a length of 1.59 m (5 ft 3 in) and a diameter of 0.76 m (2 ft 6 in). It remained connected to the rocket's third stage and had an overall length of 2.17 m (7 ft 1 in). It carried upper atmospheric radiation measurement experiments designed in the University of Adelaide. The first stage fell into the Simpson Desert, but the second's reentry over the Gulf of Carpentaria was unobserved.[4]
WRESAT, which bore an early forward-bounding kangaroo logo, operated in a nearly polar orbit and reentered the atmosphere over the Atlantic Ocean on 10 January 1968 after 642 revolutions. The battery-operated satellite successfully sent back data to NASA and Australian ground tracking stations during its first 73 revolutions of the Earth.[5]
Today, this achievement is rarely remembered in Australian textbooks or collections of major 20th century news stories and so remains largely unknown to the general Australian populace.[citation needed]
See also
Lua error in mw.title.lua at line 404: bad argument #2 to 'title.new' (unrecognized namespace name 'Portal').
References
- ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content."Redstone Sparta | WRESAT". nextspaceflight.com. Retrieved 2024-07-20.
- ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content."First time in History". The Satellite Encyclopedia. Retrieved 15 April 2011.
- ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content."Asterix-1 – Space Archaeology". spacearchaeology.org. Retrieved 2016-11-15.
- ^ National Film Archive film clips of WRESAT
- ^ Synopsis of WRESAT
Literature
- Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Morton, Peter (2017). "WRESAT: Australia Joins the Space Club" (PDF). Fire across the desert: Woomera and the Anglo-Australian Joint Project, 1946-1980. Canberra: Defence Science and Technology. pp. 483–496. ISBN 978-0-644-06068-4.
External links
- Synopsis of WRESAT
- History of SPARTA test series
- A personal reminiscence of WRESAT (Broken Link)
- National Film Archive film clips of WRESAT
- WRESAT
Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'Module:Navbox/configuration' not found.
