Island Lagoon

Introduction

Island Lagoon had three distinct components –

1.) The Minitrack site for tracking earth-orbiting satellites.

2.) The Baker Nunn Camera for tracking earth-orbiting satellites.

3.) The DSS-41 Deep Space Network tracking station.

Click the links above to go to each section.

station map to go here

Aerial shot of site. Keith Aldworth took this picture of a photo at Woomera Museum.
(DSS-41 is closest to the camera – Minitrack farthest.)
Click image for 120kb version.

DSIF-41. Keith Aldworth took this picture of a photo at Woomera Museum.
(note reflection from the glass frame)
Click image for 250kb version.

Island Lagoon Tracking Station was located adjacent to the “Island Lagoon” salt lake in the desert, 25km south of Woomera, South Australia.

It began life in 1957 and closed in December 1972 after a distinguished and varied tracking career.

It was the first Deep Space tracking station built outside the USA.

Download this Department of Supply information booklet –
with info on DSS-41 and the Baker Nunn camera.

It’s a 1.4Mb PDF – with thanks to Glen Nagle at CDSCC.

Note:

Island Lagoon is sometimes confused with the US / Australian Joint Defence Facility Nurrungar, which was 12km WNW of Island Lagoon. The two were quite separate and were built for entirely different reasons. Nurrungar was a ground station for satellites of the US Air Force’s Defence Support Program from 1970 to its close in October 1999.

Island Lagoon is also sometimes confused with Red Lake Tracking Station (also known as ‘Woomera’ during Project Mercury). Red Lake was 64km north of Island Lagoon.