Launch Site 6A

We got to take a tour today of Launch site 6A. This was a rocket launch pad about 50km from Woomera Village where we are staying. It is in a part of the range we had never been to before and we needed to get special permission to visit this area.

In the late 1950s, England was looking to develop an ICBM called the Blue Streak. They built two launch pads (6A and 6B) at Woomera on the northern shores of Lake Hart. Previous rockets that launched from Woomera had used cooling water to protect the infrastructure from the rocket exhaust. In the middle of this arid area, supplying this water turned out to be quite expensive. For the Blue Streak, a location was chosen over a gully that would allow the exhaust from the rocket to go down and be reflected sideways into the gully. No cooling water was needed.

The Blue Streak program ended a couple years later due to technical, political and financial issues. The Blue Streak rocket was then modified to became the first stage of the ELDO (European Launcher Development Organization) rocket (later named Europa) which was jointly developed by a number of European nations. This was intended to be a commercial rocket for launching satellites, but it too met an early end after several test launches. The program lasted from 1962 to 1971 and had an impact on Woomera Village. In fact, the main hotel/restaurant was built for this project and is named the Eldo.

Entering a new part of the range!

Some of the geeksgentlemen I work with.

A picture I found online of launch pad 6A in use. The only remaining parts are the concrete. The metal has all been recycled. The tower in the back rolled on tracks away from the rocket before launch. Today, the part where the rails cross over the road has also been removed. The exhaust from the rocket would be channeled out the opening in the front.

This is from the opposite direction as the previous picture. The rails would have continued from where I am standing, across the posts, and to the tower. 

Looking down the gully where the exhaust was directed. Lake Hart (the salt lake in one of my earliest posts) is in the background.

Christa in front of the small thermal exhaust port.

I heard that this place is used for special forces training. It certainly could be true. We found spent shells (50 cal machine gun, an unidentified machine gun, and RPG) laying around. Some of the walls have taken a lot of bullet hits.

Down on the lake, we found a target that had taken hits from practice RPGs and bullets.

We were a bit nervous finding these RPG shells that had obviously not exploded. A little research on the internet, though, revealed that they are practice rounds that only act as tracers.

A view back towards the launch pad.