Honeysuckle Closes

The antenna was dismantled and moved to Tidbinbilla, where it became Deep Space antenna 46.

“The receivers have gone – servo console visible in the background. Alex Sommeriva facing camera.” Photo and notes: Hamish Lindsay.

Hamish Lindsay writes –

“Honeysuckle Creek finally closed its doors in November, 1981 and simply faded away. There were no farewells, no speeches, no parties, no wakes. All the equipment was removed, we pulled the last of the cables out, and walked out the door.

During its short but glorious life, Honeysuckle Creek distinguished itself as a top station around the world in two completely different spheres as a Manned Space Flight Station and then as a Deep Space Station.”

 

Tony Gerada writes –

“We were in the same shift, a few other techs and me in the ops chair, which supported the last HSK track. I still have a recording getting a briefing from Track and Tracking etc.”

You can hear Tony on this recording he has supplied of part of Honeysuckle’s last track – of Pioneer 12. (The file is a 1.9Mb mp3 file.)

Tony also writes –
“as Hamish said, there was no party, wake, all we did was we played the Last Post at the end of track, very sad, with Tom Reid looking on. We’re trying to remember who else was on shift that day, I know Paul Mullen did the front end of business, not forgetting the security guard and the power house operator.”

 

Boxing the cables. Tony Gerada on the left, Paul Hutchinson and Les Hughes with Geff Ruck in the distant background. Photo and notes: Hamish Lindsay.

Len Litherland making headway through a tangle of cables. Boxes for shipment gathering in the background. The underfloor plinth area for the cables is clearly visible in this shot. Photo and notes: Hamish Lindsay.

Also read the Epilogue written for Hamish’s book. (This is one of the chapters that was left out of the published version.)