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 06 March 2026. | News & Events 03 December 2025.


Click here for the Site menu

 

Featured for March 2026


Featured

NASA 421 makes a very low pass over Carnarvon Tracking Station at the end of the Apollo 17 sims, November 1972.

Photo: Bob Burns from the Goddard Simulation team.
Inset photo by Carnarvon’s Stan Parkes.

Image from the 2026 Honeysuckle and NASA Networks (completely unofficial) Calendar on my personal website.

 
Anniversaries:

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Honeysuckle Creek opening day, 17 March 1967.

Prime Minister Harold Holt controls the Honeysuckle antenna, guided by Chief Engineer Wes Moon. Dame Zara Holt is at right. Behind her, wearing glasses, is Senator Denham Henty, Minister for Supply.


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Tidbinbilla opening day, 19 March 1965.

NASA Associate Administrator Edmond Buckley looks on as Prime Minister Sir Robert Menzies regards a model of the Tidbinbilla antenna.


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Tidbinbilla / DSN support of Apollo 9.

In the Apollo 9 section.

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Apollo 9 launch
Audio

Apollo 9 TV
Slow scan pictures

Apollo 9 and HSK
by Hamish Lindsay

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See the new PDF version of Hamish Lindsay’s Apollo 9 essay –

In the Apollo 9 section.



Honeysuckle Stories:
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C’mon – There’s no snow in Australia!” – by Hamish Lindsay.


Remembering:
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In 2004, Island Lagoon’s Pat Delgado shared his experiences of being evacuated at Dunkirk in 1940.


Further updates planned for later in the month.


See the full collection of featured items at this link.


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

Some of them are collected here.


Site Menu

Updates | News| Previously featured items

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
,
MSFN Technical Information Bulletins

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, Apollo-Soyuz Test Project.

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, Texas (Corpus Christi), MILA.

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


Featured

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


Honeysuckle featured photo
Honeysuckle featured photo

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.

In 2019, the Royal Australian Mint Moon Landing Coins commemorated the Moon landing.

Click for more about the coins.


Honeysuckle in 1971

Neil Armstrong on the footpad – as seen at Honeysuckle Creek

Honeysuckle Creek:
a beautiful setting

Website by Colin Mackellar – photo taken 09 October 1971.


Prime Minister Gorton’s statement
Prime Minister Gorton’s statement

Australian Prime Minister John Gorton visits Honeysuckle Creek on the day of the Moon Landing, Monday 21 July 1969. Silent film runs for 4'02" – a 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.

The Honeysuckle antenna today

Honeysuckle featured photoThe 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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