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A Tribute to the men and women of
Honeysuckle Creek Tracking Station, Canberra, Australia

the wider Australian involvement
in manned and unmanned space exploration, and more!

Updated 01 June 2023. | News & Events 01 April 2023.

Featured for June 2023

July 4 1969, Walter Cronkite and his CBS News team visit Goldstone Apollo to film Apollo 11 preparations.

Left: Cronkite with M&O Supervisor Tom Turnbull. Right: An interview with the family of BFEC dispatcher and mechanic Robert Burton. Photos: Bill Wood.

See Bill Wood’s photos of the visit.

Image from the 2023 HSK calendar (on my personal website).

Surveyor 1, June 1966.
Celebrating the successful re-awakening of Surveyor 1 after the long lunar night, Tidbinbilla Station Director Bob Leslie (right) presents “The Prince Charming Award” to Tidbinbilla Ops Supervisor Paddy Johnstone (left) and Hal French, (Hughes) Surveyor Ops Chief.

See the Surveyor section here.

Carnarvon Opening, 25 June 1964.

Gemini IV and the first American space walk, supported by the flight control team at Carnarvon Tracking Station, June 1965.

See Previous featured items at this link. (Newest at the bottom.)

Also see some related (and some unrelated!) video at vimeo.com/honeysuckle.

Some of them are collected here.

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Honeysuckle Creek

Intro
Early Days (Location, Construction, Early scenes, Opening)
The Station (Technical descriptions, photos)
Honeysuckle People, Stories. (incl. Visitors, StaDirs, Reunions, and more.)

Apollo Missions

The Manned Space Flight Network,
Mission Control Center - Houston,

Preparing for Apollo, Goddard Sims, Station Readiness Tests,

Apollo Summary,

Apollo 1, Apollo 7, Apollo 8, Apollo 9, Apollo 10, Apollo 11, Apollo 11 TV, Apollo 12, Apollo 13, Apollo 14, Apollo 15, Apollo 16, Apollo 17, ALSEP, Skylab,

Leaving the MSFN.

Deep Space Missions

Last Days Honeysuckle Today The Books

Videos

Interviews

Space People

Other

Other Stations
Tidbinbilla, Goldstone, Madrid, Carnarvon, Guam, Ascension Island, ARIA, Deakin Switch, Parkes, Muchea, Red Lake, Island Lagoon, Orroral Valley, Cooby Creek, Carnarvon OTC, OTC (Aust), BFEC, Santiago, Darwin.

Missions Supported by Other Stations
Mercury: Friendship 7, Faith 7.
Gemini: Gemini 3, Gemini 4, Gemini 5, Gemini 12.
Mariner IV, Ranger, Lunar Orbiter, Surveyor, Pioneer, Viking, Voyager.

Department of Supply
Pioneers, WRESAT, Woomera.

About / Contact
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Message from Christopher Kraft, 14 March 1974, on the occasion of Honeysuckle leaving the Manned Space Flight Network.

Honeysuckle Creek
The story of Tom Reid, a little dish, and Neil Armstrong’s First Step – by Andrew Tink, 2019.

Click for more about the book.

Royal Australian Mint Moon Landing Coins commemorate the Moon landing. 2019.

Click for more about the coins.


Honeysuckle Creek: a beautiful setting Website by Colin Mackellar – photo taken 09 October 1971.	Honeysuckle and Apollo 11 The Apollo 11 Mission. Apollo 11 TV. Search for the tapes.


Australian Prime Minister John Gorton visits Honeysuckle Creek on the day of the Moon Landing, Monday 21 July 1969. Silent film (14MB MPEG4 file).	The Prime Minister after his tour inside Honeysuckle’s Operations building. Unedited news film runs for 5'14". A 21MB MPEG4 file.
Both clips courtesy of the ABC. See more of the Prime Minister’s visit here.

One Small Step: The Australian Story

Watch “One Small Step: The Australian Story”, produced by Freehand TV in Sydney for the BBC, for the 40th anniversary in 2009.
This is a unique account of Australia’s role, and features key players from Honeysuckle Creek, Tidbinbilla and Parkes. Recommended.

(If you’ve seen the much-loved Australian comedy “The Dish”,
watch this to discover what actually happened.)

The Honeysuckle antenna today

The old Honeysuckle antenna was used for its last official track in January 2010.

DSS46 photos.

And here’s a tribute page of photos on the occasion of the shutdown.

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