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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 15 April 2019. | News & Jottings 01 February 2019.

apollo50thaustralia.org (external link)
Join us for the Apollo 11 50th Anniversary in Australia.

Featured: April 2019.


Pre-mission simulations, at Honeysuckle, of an emergency aboard Apollo 13, April 1970.	Celebrations at Honeysuckle Creek after the safe return of Apollo 16, April 1972.


Apollo 13 Re-entry ARIA 4 acquires	Apollo 13 rescue Thanks at HSK	“Our Time” by Gene Kranz

Apollo 13 Returns from the Moon – early on 18th April AEST 1970.

The Manned Space Flight Network, 50 years ago

Technical Information Bulletin, Vol. 6, No. 5, 15 April 1969. (Click the image for a 4.5MB PDF file)

The TIBs were published by the Goddard Space Flight Center’s Manned Flight Operations Division for Network personnel. Those already online can be found here.


Mrs O’Donahue saves Carnarvon.	It’s a dog’s life at Ascension Island.	And a cat’s life at Cooby Creek.

Honeysuckle Creek and Venus, at dawn, December 1975. New scan.
Note the planet Venus just to the right of the dish.

See more of Vice President Dan Quayle’s visit to Tidbinbilla.

See also the updates page – further updates planned for later in the month.

See Previous featured items at this link.

Site Menu

Updates | News

Honeysuckle Creek

Intro
Early Days (Location, Construction, Early scenes, Opening)
The Station (Technical description, photos)
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 The DVDs.

Interviews

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.

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
Tips on navigating the site
Links

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

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

Click for more about the book.

Royal Australian Mint Moon Landing Coins commemorate the Moon landing.

Click for more about the coins.

“We have just switched video to Honeysuckle.” – Houston TV.

What happened with the Apollo 11 TV signal. Who received it, and where did it go? Direct link.

More here – including the Honeysuckle audio with transcript.

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


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.

Apollo 11 40th The Apollo 11 40th anniversary celebrations in July 2009.	The Honeysuckle Creek DVDs Including Ed von Renouard’s Apollo 11 Super 8 movie – and the full Restored Apollo 11 EVA.


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. On YouTube.

(If you’ve seen the 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.