Red Lake, Woomera

 

The NASA Red Lake Tracking Station was built to support the Mercury Project – and was the next station after Muchea that would track a Mercury capsule in its orbit around the Earth. Red Lake was known as “Woomera” – with an identification code of WOM.

Located 43km north of Woomera, the Red Lake FPS-16 Radar had been built by the UK and Australian governments to track Blue Streak launches from the nearby Woomera Rocket Range. In the preparations for Project Mercury, an agreement was reached with the US for the FPS-16 to be used to support Mercury tracking.

Red Lake panorama Red Lake T&C

The FPS-16 Radar.
The Acq. Aid antennas and T&C building.


It was because of this arrangement that the NASA tracking station, with Aquisition Aids and air to ground voice and telemetry, was established at the same location – just 600 metres east of the FPS-16 site.

Click the images above to see stills from some film taken at Red Lake.

Mercury stations

This NASA map of the Mercury tracking network shows the ground track
for the MA-9 flight.

 

(Location map and map of the area to come.)