Black & white photos of Carnarvon

These photos were taken in May 1966 and January 1967 – possibly by a Department of Supply photographer.

With thanks to Trevor Mosel for preserving the set and to Stuart Wattison for making the scans.
Photo repair and formatting by Colin Mackellar.
The descriptions are generally those on the back of the photos – transcribed by Stuart Wattison.

For orientation, this station map may come in handy.

25 January 1967

1a. Services Building.

1b. Range and Range Rate Access Road.

2a. R & RR – Proposed Road Realignment Area.

2b. R & RR – Car Park. (Who’s that up on the antenna?)

3a. R & RR – East of Road

3b. R & RR – Area GSFC proposes for New Building.

4a. R & RR – New Location East of Road.

4b. R & RR – S band Antenna from New Position.

5a. BIOSTAT at R & RR.

5b. SPAN Area.

3 May 1966

6a. Video Equipment (Ampex VR-1100?) for AS-203.

AS-203 was Carnarvon USB’s first official mission. A TV camera mounted inside the S-IVB liquid hydrogen tank enabled CRO to record what happened to a cloud of liquid hydrogen droplets when the ullage rocket was fired to bring the droplets back together as a single mass of liquid – the first ever live television transmission into Australia.

The manned Apollo flights would need to re-start the S-IVB for Trans-Lunar Injection.

AS-203 was launched on 5 July 1966.

(Thanks to Paul Dench for his help.)