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 22 March 2025. | News & Events 01 July 2024.


Featured for March 2025


Featured

This month marks the 60th anniversary of the Opening of Tidbinbilla Tracking Station (Deep Space Instrumentation Facility– DSIF42) by Prime Minister Sir Robert Menzies, on 19th March 1965.

Left: Frames from Department of Supply footage (see below).
Right: Cover of the Opening Day booklet.

Image from the 2025 Honeysuckle and NASA Networks (completely unofficial) Calendar on my personal website.


Featured

Tidbinbilla’s Opening Day, 19 March 1965. On Vimeo.

Also see the Opening Day page.


Featured

Featured

Featured

Video: Keith Aldworth and Mike Dinn in Conversation.

Keith and Mike recall the Surveyor Program which they both supported at Tidbinbilla.


With the current unmanned lunar landings, remember Sunset at Surveyor 3 in 1967 – via DSS42 Tidbinbilla.


HSK opening

Honeysuckle Creek Opening – 58th annniversary – 17 March 1967.


Honeysuckle Creek Opening – 58th annniversary – 17 March 1967.


Gus and John GT3

60th Anniversary of Gemini 3, the first manned Gemini flight, 24 March 1965. Photo: Gus Grissom (Command Pilot) and John Young (Pilot).

See Hamish Lindsay’s essay and hear audio recorded at Carnarvon.


Featured

In this 2017 interview, John Saxon speaks about his space tracking career. Watch on Vimeo.


Gus and John GT3

56th Anniversary of Apollo 9, the first manned test of the Lunar Module, 03–13 March 1969.


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.


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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, 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 commemorate 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 (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

Featured

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

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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