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The visitor enters Woomera via Pimba, which is little more than an old style roadhouse, pub, and service station near the railway line. The old rolling stock and age of the roadhouse give Pimba a rather antiquated appearance. The term "woomera" describes a short stick used to launch a spear in the language of the local Aborigines. The site for the city of Woomera was selected because it was preferred over a site which had been nominated by Canada. In 1946 the Australian government received a formal request from Britain to establish a rocket range 1600 km long and 300 km wide. This was possible given the vast wastelands which existed in northwestern South Australia.
Occasionally NASA will "rent" the range to launch astronomical rocket payloads to study stars in the southern hemisphere. As recently as 1995, NASA (with the University of Colorado and others) sent approximately 600 scientists and technicians to Woomera where they launched six rocket payloads over six weeks. The engines used were decomissioned from old warheads and given to NASA by the US government. In order to get the engines to Australia, they had to be sent via ship and transported to the range with the greatest of care. Vicky Alten Sahami, one of the astronomer guides who will be escorting the tour to Australia, spent 5 weeks in Woomera during the 1995 NASA campaign. She went to help launch the two payloads designed and built by the University of Colorado team to study ultraviolet sources (in this case stars) in the southern hemisphere. |
Woomera
(including Pimba, Nurrungar and Arcoona) is a famous outback township
which, since the 1940s, has been the centre of Australian and
British rocket launching experiments. Located 486 km north of
Adelaide (180 km north of Port Augusta) and positioned some 165
m above sea level, Woomera is a purpose built town (established
in 1947) designed by the Long Range Weapons Board of Administration
to provide an isolated experimental ground for testing rockets.
It is located in the middle of a desert terrain where the average
annual rainfall is only 190 mm.
The
decision to build a rocket range was made in the postwar environment
when the world was still recovering from the slaughter of World
War 11. As a result of German rocket attacks on Britain during
that war, the British decided that they needed a rocket testing
range and the isolation of Woomera combined with its proximity
to the railway siding at Pimba made it an ideal location. In June
1946 the first Dakota landed on the first temporary airstrip.
A regular RAAF courier service was inaugurated which provided
travel, food, mail and supplies for people who were building the
range. On 1 April 1947, Arcoona leased the land to the Department
of Defense and the Woomera village was surveyed and built. From
1947-1970 Woomera was an important centre. Throughout the 1950s
and 1960s a number of rockets were launched culminating in the
launching of the Prospero satellite in 1969. 