Hidden treasures and stories from our collection
40 years ago, Apollo 16 landed in the Descartes region of the central lunar highlands. Image Courtesy NASA
This might sound like the set-up for a joke, but there really is a connection between the museum, NASA’s Apollo 16 mission and the USSR’s Luna 20 lunar sample recovery mission.
Continue reading ‘What’s the link between Apollo 16, a Soviet Moon mission and the Powerhouse Museum?’
Launch of the Friendship 7. Image: courtesy NASA
Fifty years ago, in the early hours of February 21, 1962 (Sydney time), NASA astronaut John Glenn became the first American to orbit the Earth, on board his Mercury spacecraft Friendship 7. Although two previous Mercury missions had flown brief sub-orbital flights, achieving orbit was an important goal for the US space program at that point in the Cold War contest of the Space Race. The Soviet Union had already launched two orbital missions in its Vostok program: the first had put Yuri Gagarin into orbit as the world’s first space traveller; the second had seen Cosmonaut Gherman Titov spend an entire day in space. To maintain credibility in the Space Race, America had to demonstrate that it, too, had the capability to put an astronaut into orbit.
Continue reading ‘The Friendship 7 Mission’s secret stamp of approval’
Satellite fragment, one of 2, titanium / vanadium / aluminium, maker unknown, USSR, found in New South Wales, Australia, 1957-1972,
height 340 and width 379mm. Collection: Powerhouse Museum
Somewhere between 5 and 6am on Monday morning (Sydney time), Russia’s ill-fated Fobos-Grunt space probe disintegrated on re-entry into the Earth’s atmosphere, most likely over the southern Pacific Ocean off the coast of Chile (a summary of information about the Fobos-Grunt re-entry can be found on the Planetary Society blog . This was the third re-entry of a large defunct spacecraft since last September (the other two being NASA’s UARs and the German ROSAT), all of which attracted considerable media attention due to their size and potential to cause serious property damage or injury if their debris impacted in a populated area.
The danger from space debris to any individual is actually quite low, since a re-entering satellite is more likely to disintegrate over the oceans than over the land, and large tracts of the Earth’s land masses are very sparsely inhabited. In fact, dead satellites, spent rocket stages and other items of space debris regularly re-enter and burn up without creating any hazard, although fragments of space debris large enough to survive re-entry and reach the ground are not uncommon, with a handful of finds reported every year. These pieces of space junk are often found in remote areas or washed up on beaches after impact in the sea and can be quite perplexing for their discoverers. The Powerhouse receives a couple of enquiries every year from people who think they may have found a piece of space debris, or are just not sure what the strange piece of burnt material or slagged metal they have discovered might be. I recall one enquiry from a person who thought they had found a piece of space junk in the bush-but it turned out to be a dumped chunk of catalytic converter from a car engine!
94/254/1Space debris, Skylab space station, titanium/fibreglass, McDonnell Douglas Astronautics Co, USA, 1970-1972, height 810, width 1120 and depth 900mm. Collection: Powerhouse Museum
In its collection, the museum holds a piece of the Skylab space station, which re-entered over the Indian Ocean and Western Australia in 1979. I’ve written about this artefact and the unusual story of its discovery in a previous post. Another piece of space debris is currently in display in the Space exhibition, one of two fragments that the museum acquired as a donation from the finder in 1972. This partly-melted metal sphere is one of three similar objects that were found on Dobikin merino stud, near Bellata in northern NSW, in 1972. Two spheres were found in late September of that year, with the third being discovered in mid-October. At two of the impact sites, scorched and burned grass testified that the spheres were extremely hot when they landed.
In the 1960s and early 70s there were several finds of space debris in Australia. A report on the Bellata spheres from the Weapons Research Establishment (which is part of the documentation provided to the museum by the donor, Dobikin stud manager Mr. J. T. Vickery), lists seven ‘space objects’ that had been found and reported between 1963 and 1973. This is perhaps not surprising as Australia’s landmass covers a wide horizontal swath of the Earth’s surface. All these items were spherical pressure vessels, their shape better suited aerodynamically to survive the stresses of re-entry, and showed varying degrees of melting and other re-entry damage. They would have originally contained gases or cryogenic liquids.
When the first ‘space ball’ was found on Boullia Station in far western NSW in 1963, media speculation as to its origins ranged from evidence for an advanced ancient lost civilisation in Australia, to debris from a damaged UFO and “Boullia Ball” became a nickname for this type of spherical object found in Australia and New Zealand (some were found across the Tasman in 1972). However, investigations of the Boullia Ball and later space debris finds by the Weapons Research Establishment (WRE), Australia’s defence science agency and forerunner of today’s Defence Science and Technology Organisation (DSTO), demonstrated that they were of definite terrestrial origin, mostly from US launch vehicles.
The first two “Bellata Balls” were sent to the WRE for examination and it was established, on the basis of the type of weld used in their construction, and lettering on one ball in the Cyrillic alphabet, that the pressure vessels had originated in the USSR. In the Cold War environment of the time, the Embassy of the USSR in Canberra declined the WRE’s invitation to inspect the balls and confirm their origin, but there is little doubt about the identification. After examination, the WRE forwarded the two balls to the museum in 1973, in accord with Dobikin manager Mr. Vickery’s wish to donate them to the Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences. The third ball discovered remained in Mr. Vickery’s possession.
The two Bellata balls donated to the museum are made of a titanium/vanadium/aluminium alloy, a relatively light but strong metal. The sphere on display in the Space exhibition is the most complete of the two, although it was partially melted away and shows a jagged rim slagged with congealed metal. The body and interior of the ball are spattered with other blobs of metal slag, but it is otherwise reasonably intact. The other sphere was burned through in two places, so the WRE decided to cut it into pieces for examination and analysis: only a segment of the original now remains, stenciled with lab markings.
B2093-2 Satellite fragments (2), titanium / vanadium / aluminium, maker unknown, USSR, found in New South Wales, Australia, 1957-1972, height 195, width 390 and depth 360mm. Collection: Powerhouse Museum
Finds of space debris, tangible items that have been in space and thus are imbued with the mystique of space exploration (however mundane their actual role) continue to fascinate the public and the media. They are also important reminders of an issue that is assuming increasing significance-the dangers to operational satellites from the remnants of old satellites littering the most useful orbits. This is a topic that I’ll address in a future blog post.
It’s an exciting time for astronomy in Australia, with the recent announcement that Professor Brian Schmidt is to receive the 2011 Nobel Prize for Physics and the strong possibility that the nation could be selected next year as the site for the Square Kilometre Array (SKA). Both optical astronomy (Schmidt’s area of expertise) and radio astronomy (the domain of the SKA) have flourished here since World War 2. Australia is thoroughly embedded in the amazing international effort to observe, measure and understand the universe.
Powerhouse Museum Collection. Gift of Mt Stromlo Observatory, 1989.
While most of the Powerhouse Museum’s astronomy collection relates to the history of our own Sydney Observatory, we have a few items used at Mt Stromlo, where Schmidt carried out his prize-winning observations. Professor Ben Gascoigne built this polarimeter at Mt Stromlo in 1963 to detect magnetic fields in distant dust clouds. The instrument, currently on display at Sydney Observatory, was designed to be bolted onto a telescope, gather the light scattered by dust particles, and detect the alignment of particles that indicates the presence of a magnetic field.
Now Brian Schmidt was born and studied in the USA but carried out key work in Australia. The aura of winning a Nobel Prize is such that we are happy to claim him as one of ours, while also making the same claim about Professor Elizabeth Blackburn, who was born and studied here but migrated to the USA, where she did the work that won her the 2009 Nobel Prize for Medicine.
Both Schmidt and Blackburn hold dual citizenship, so they can be claimed legitimately by both nations. Importantly, these scientists can be seen as valuable role models for the youth of both countries, which is why the Museum is interested in telling their stories – as well as the stories of less stellar scientists such as the talented Ben Gascoigne, whose other claim to fame was as the husband of artist Rosalie Gascoigne (both of whom were born in New Zealand but chose to live in Australia).
Image courtesy NASA
In my blog post on April 12, to mark the 50th anniversary of the first person in space, I referred to the fact that that same date was also the anniversary of the first flight of the US Space Transportation System, generally known as the Space Shuttle.
With the STS-134 mission coming soon, marking the final flight of the Space Shuttle Endeavour, the Space Shuttle program is drawing to a close after 30 years of operations.
Conceived in the 1960s and developed in the 70s, when the United States turned its attention away from the Apollo program and lunar exploration to focus on the development of a space infrastructure in Low Earth Orbit, the Space Transportation System was intended to provide a versatile “space truck” capable of carrying both crew and cargo into space and supporting a wide variety of orbital operations. The Shuttle was proposed as a vehicle that would reduce the cost of access to space through re-useable components and the amortisation of its development costs over a high number of flights per year. However, the competing technical requirements of its intended military and civilian roles, coupled with budget cuts during development, resulted in a vehicle that was only partially re-usable (the Orbiter and the Solid Rocket Boosters), with high maintenance requirements and inherent design flaws, that would prevent it from living up to the high flight rate and ambitious program goals originally planned.
Images courtesy of NASA
The image on the left side shows the Space Shuttle Columbia lifting off on its maiden flight, April 12, 1981 ( Note the white painted External Tank, later discontinued in order to save weight).
The image on the right shows the Space Shuttle Atlantis landing on the runway at Kennedy Space Centre at the completion of the STS-86 mission in 1997.
Despite its drawbacks, the Shuttle nevertheless is a “remarkable flying machine”, linking the technologies of rocketry and aviation in its ability to launch like a rocket and make a runway landing like an aircraft. It is capable of carrying crew of 8, together with 24 tonnes of cargo, into orbit and has been used to launch satellites (including Australia’s first Aussat domestic communications satellites) and interplanetary probes, build and service the International Space Station (ISS), transport crew to the Mir space station and ISS, conduct microgravity research on orbit with the European Space Agency’s Spacelab laboratory module and launch and service the Hubble Space Telescope, as well as carrying out classified US military missions.
Six Shuttle Orbiters have been built during the life of the program, each named after a famous exploration vessel: Enterprise (the atmospheric test vehicle, named after the iconic spacecraft from the television series Star Trek, as a result of a letter campaign by Star Trek fans, but also the name of several significant US ships); Columbia and Challenger, the first and second operational vehicles, which were both destroyed as a result of accidents stemming from the systems inherent design flaws, each with the loss of all seven crew members (Challenger was lost 73 seconds after launch in January 1986, while Columbia was destroyed 16 minutes before touchdown in 2003); Discovery (the Orbiter which made the most flights), Atlantis (which will make the final flight of the Shuttle program at the end of June) and Endeavour (built as a replacement for Challenger and named for Captain Cook’s vessel). On this year’s April 12 anniversary, NASA Administrator Charles Bolden announced the US museums that would become home to these four remaining Orbiters: unfortunately, museums outside the United States were not eligible to receive a Space Shuttle, so there was no possibility that one would make its way to the Powerhouse Museum.
Mock up of the forward section of a Shuttle Orbiter: Image Powerhouse Museum
But, as visitors to the Museum will know, the Powerhouse Space exhibition does feature a full size external mockup of the forward section of a Shuttle Orbiter. Originally installed for the opening of the first Powerhouse Space display in 1988, this mockup now houses the introductory section of the current exhibition’s “Living and Working in Space” theme. As a corporate contribution to Australia’s Bicentennary celebrations in 1988, the construction of this mockup was generously funded by the builders of the Space Shuttle Orbiter, Rockwell International (now part of the Boeing aerospace company, which also sponsored the construction of the Museum’s Space Station Habitation Module mockup).
Model, US Space Shuttle, plastic / metal / wood, made by Pacific Miniatures Alhambra, California United States of America, 1981-1986, Collection Powerhouse Museum
To mark the announcement of their sponsorship in 1986, Rockwell also donated to the museum this 1:100 scale model of the Space Transportation System, showing the Orbiter, External Tank and Solid Rocket Boosters in their launch configuration. Constructed by Pacific Miniatures, California, this model (one of three in different scales held in the Museum’s collections) is an excellent example of the type of gift model that companies use to promote their products. In the 1980s and 90s, it decorated the Director’s office and was recently displayed in The 80s are Back’s timeline section.
Photograph Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, taken by Valentin Shkolny. Collection: Powerhouse Museum
Fifty years ago today, on April 12, 1961, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin was launched into orbit, becoming the first person in space. In the Cold War climate of the times, this event was not only a major technological and scientific achievement, but also a tremendous propaganda victory for the Soviet Union in the Space Race with the United States. As a result of his historic 108 minute spaceflight, Gagarin-a genial, modest pilot in the Soviet Air Force- was catapulted to fame as a popular hero in the USSR and a global icon of the supposed “technological superiority” of the Communist system.
In 2004, the Powerhouse acquired two unique photographic portraits of Gagarin taken in the early 1960s that provide a glimpse of the man behind the icon. Both are the work of Valentin Shkolny, a Ukrainian-born photographer and artist who was at that time a prominent Soviet photojournalist. He frequently photographed Gagarin and his cosmonaut colleagues for TASS, the Soviet news agency. (After the fall of the Soviet Union, Shkolny migrated to Australia and has continued to work as a professional photographer and artist).
The first photograph (shown above) is a rare informal portrait of Yuri Gagarin in civilian clothes, sporting a ‘five o’clock shadow’, taken in his home at the cosmonauts’ training centre Zvezdny Gorodok (“Star City”) near Moscow. Gagarin permitted Shkolny, who was known to him from his photojournalism work, to visit his home briefly and take this photograph while Shkolny was in Zvezdny Gorodok on another assignment. Unlike many posed official ‘informal’ photographs of Gagarin and his family, this portrait emphasises Gagarin the man and hints at the underlying tensions being imposed on his private life as a result of his status as Cosmonaut No. 1-pressures that would lead to Gagarin developing a problem with alcohol.
The second photograph (below) is an interesting example of an ‘informal’ version of an official Soviet picture. Propaganda images of Gagarin surrounded by admiring crowds of adults and/or children are common and this photograph was taken by Shkolny while he was covering Gagarin’s reception at Zukhovsky Air Force Base following his return from a goodwill tour. In addition to his ‘official’ images of the crowd of children (said to be the children of fellow cosmonauts) welcoming Gagarin, Shkolny snapped this shot of Gagarin in an unguarded moment, showing his unfeigned delight in being with the children. Gagarin, by reputation, was very fond of children and this image once again captures Gagarin the man, as distinct from his more formal persona of ‘Gagarin the hero’ or ‘Gagarin the international public figure’.
Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, taken by Valentin Shkolny. Collection: Powerhouse Museum
Today, the rivalry of the Space Race has given way to the partnership of the International Space Station, but Yuri Gagarin (who was unfortunately killed in a plane crash in 1968) remains an international icon as the world’s first space traveller. Since 2001, global Yuri’s Night events have been held on April 12, to celebrate the achievements of human spaceflight in exploring beyond our home planet. Today, in celebration of the 50th anniversary of Gagarin’s flight, more than 420 Yuri’s Night events will be held around the world (and beyond!) and the United Nations has officially designated the date as International Spaceflight Day.
It’s not too late to join in the celebrations. There are public Yuri’s Night events planned in several places around Australia (check the website), or you participate in the global premier of the film First Orbit-a documentary by award winning film maker Chris Riley (In the Shadow of the Moon) that recreates Gagarin’s orbit around the Earth, using footage specially shot by the astronauts on board the International Space Station. This film has been specifically made to celebrate the 50th anniversary of spaceflight and is being premiered around the world today. It can be downloaded free here.This film will be screened at the Powerhouse Museum and Sydney Observatory from today. Other Yuri’s Day activities at the Powerhouse have had to be rescheduled due to illness, but they will take place later in the year, so keep an eye on the Museum’s website for further information.
Of course, April 12 this year also marks the 30th anniversary of the first Space Shuttle launch took place, so today is a significant anniversary for US spaceflight as well. This event will be the topic of a future blog, so look out for it soon.
Photography by Marinco Kojdanovski, Powerhouse Museum.
It’s a little known fact that Britain is the only country to have developed its own satellite launch capability and then abandoned it. Britain’s launch vehicle was called Black Arrow and it was launched four times from the Woomera Rocket Range in South Australia between 1969 and 1971 before the program was cancelled. On its last, flight Black Arrow launched the satellite “Prospero” (named for the Shakespearean sorcerer who gives up magic), only the second satellite launched from Woomera. Visitors to the Museum’s Space exhibition can see a pair of payload fairings from a Black Arrow rocket, that were actually used on one of these test flights. The payload fairings covered the satellite at the top of the vehicle to protect it from the stresses of launch, forming a bullet-shaped nose cone for the rocket.
The name Black Arrow comes from the “Rainbow Codes” used for research projects conducted by the British Armed Services. Development of the Black Arrow launcher commenced in 1964, with much of its technology derived from the earlier Black Knight rocket, a re-entry test vehicle also used at Woomera. Standing 13m tall and with a maximum diameter of 2 m, the Black Arrow was a small three stage satellite launcher, designed to carry small test satellites (around 100-130 kg in weight) into low earth orbit. The payload fairings protecting the satellite were hinged so that they opened like petals and fell away during the second stage rocket firing.
The payload fairings were made by the British Hovercraft Corporation on the Isle of Wight in the UK: after the demise of the Black Arrow, the design lived on, being used on the French Diamant B/P.4 launcher in 1975 and the British Falstaff hypersonic research rocket, flown at Woomera in the late 1970s. Each metal fairing had an external cladding of a Hypalon, a synthetic rubber-like material. On one of the Museum’s fairings, this cladding shows a major body crack, like a blow, presumably from impact with the ground after it was jettisoned. The payload fairings on the first Black Arrow launch (designated R0) were white, but on the later three launches the fairings were bright red, although the Museum’s pair have faded to orange due to years of exposure to the desert sun before they were recovered.
Which Black Arrow launch did our fairings belong to? As already mentioned, R0 (launched in June 1969) had white fairings, so they must belong to one of the later launches. According to provenance information on the original recovery of the fairings, they were found on Millers Creek Station in South Australia, about 250kms north-west of Woomera. This indicates that the fairings are from R1, the first successful test flight of the Black Arrow rocket, with a dummy third stage. Only Black Arrow R0 and R1 had planned north-westerly flight paths in the direction of Millers Creek Station; the later two flights (R2 and R3) being launched on northerly flight paths. However, R0 was destroyed shortly after lift-off, while R1 was a textbook flight, with the nosecone being correctly jettisoned. This year marks the 40th anniversary of the R1 flight, which was launched on 4 March 1970.
How the fairings came to the Museum is an interesting story in itself. They were purchased at auction in 2001 from the collection of the Rohrlach Heritage Gallery, a private museum in Tanunda, South Australia. The museum’s collection was assembled by Kevin Rohrlach, a South Australian businessman with a passion for collecting technology. In the 1970s and 80s, as the research work at the Woomera Rocket Range was winding down, Mr. Rohrlach salvaged various items of aerospace hardware from Woomera and the downrange pastoral properties for inclusion in his collection. The Rohrlach museum was a tourist attraction in the Barossa Valley area for about 30 years, but after Kevin Rohrlach passed away in 1998 his widow closed the museum and put the contents up for auction in 2001, at which time the museum acquired several examples of space-related technology used at Woomera. In addition to the Black Arrow fairings, other material from the former Rohrlach Collection can be seen on display in the Space exhibition and at the Powerhouse Discovery Centre.
On May 20, NASA’s Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity set a new endurance record for operating on the surface of Mars, surpassing the record of six years and 116 days set by NASA’s Viking 1 lander almost 30 years ago.
Artist's image of Mars Exploration Rover. Image courtesy of NASA.
Opportunity landed in Mars’ northern hemisphere on Mars on January 25, 2004 for a mission that was originally planned to last 90 sols (Martian days; approximately 92 and a half Earth days) and cover less than a kilometre. Not only has Opportunity far outlived its ‘design lifetime’ it has already travelled more than 20 km across the Martian surface and still has about another 12 km to go to reach its long term destination, Endeavour Crater.
NASA image showing Opportunity's path across the Martian surface leading up to May 20. Image courtesy of NASA.
Opportunity’s twin rover, Spirit, actually landed on Mars three weeks before Opportunity: but due to the low amount of sunlight reaching its solar panels in Mars’ southern hemisphere winter, Spirit has been out of communication since March 22, and it is uncertain if the rover will survive the winter. If Spirit does resume communication when spring arrives, then it will actually become the holder of the Martian surface longevity record.
The previous record holder, Viking 1, landed on Mars on July 20, 1976. It was part of the Viking program, which consisted of two orbiters, each of which carried a stationary lander. Viking 2 arrived on the Martian surface on September 4, 1976 (Australian time). Viking 1 operated until November 13, 1982, more than two years longer than Viking 2 or either of the Viking orbiters.
A full-size model of the 'Viking 1' lander. Image courtesy of NASA.
The overall record for longest working lifetime of any spacecraft at Mars currently belongs to NASA’s Mars Global Surveyor, which arrived in orbit around Mars in 1997 and operated for more than 9 years. However, MGS’s record will soon be broken by another NASA orbiter, Mars Odyssey, which has been in orbit since 2001.
Photography by Marinco Kojdanovski, © Powerhouse Museum, all rights reserved.
Curators at the Powerhouse not only research information about the artefacts in our own collection, from time to time we assist external colleagues with their object research as well. Satellite propulsion engineer Alan Lawrie, author of histories of the Saturn V and Saturn I rockets, contacted the museum seeking information about the F-1 rocket motor in the Space exhibition. Together with former employees of the Rocketdyne company, which manufactured the F-1, Alan has been researching the location and identification of all the surviving F-1 rocket engines.
The most powerful single chamber liquid fuel rocket engine so far put into service, five F-1 motors were used in the first stage of the Saturn V rocket that launched the Apollo missions to the Moon. The only example on public display outside the United States, the museum’s F-1 is on long term loan from the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum.
Unfortunately, the Smithsonian’s records had very little information about the history of this rocket motor and had incorrectly recorded its serial number, making it difficult for Alan to trace the story of this particular engine. Despite the difficulty of accessing the suspended engine, we were able to arrange for photos of the motor’s makers plate, which allowed for the correct identification of its serial number. This enabled a search of the surviving Rocketdyne records to establish the engine’s history.
We now know that the F-1 rocket motor in the Space exhibition was the 25th of 114 research and development F-1 engines produced by Rocketdyne and that it was probably manufactured in 1961. It was test fired 35 times.
Collection, Powerhouse Museum
With all the media attention focussed on the Apollo 11 Moon landing 40th anniversary, another space anniversary of particular interest to Australia passed un-noticed in July. Thirty years ago, in the early hours of July 12, 1979, the United States’ first space station, Skylab, re-entered the Earth’s atmosphere and broke up scattering debris across the southern Indian Ocean and the south-eastern part of Western Australia. Launched in 1973, Skylab had been home to three crews of astronauts in 73-74.
Although the heaviest fragments of the station fell into the Indian Ocean, a large amount of Skylab debris fell in a swath from the coastal town of Esperance to the Nullarbor Plain, beyond the community of Balladonia. One of the pieces that landed on the Nullarbor was a large cylindrical oxygen tank that burst on striking the ground, breaking into two fragments which bounced in different directions. The largest fragment, the main body of the tank, ultimately found its way into the special Skylab collection of the Esperance Museum. The smaller piece, the end cap of the oxygen tank, remained undiscovered until the early 1990s when it was found by a stockman.
The circular lid had landed with its insulated exterior to the ground, so that its curved shape formed a shallow dish that caught rainwater, turning it into a very unusual drinking bowl for the cattle and native animals of the area. In fact, it was seeing animals drinking at a place where there should have been no water available that led to its discovery.
As you can see in the image, the end cap is torn and bent as a result of being ripped away from the rest of the tank and its exterior is covered by a composite insulation material with a woven fibreglass outer surface.
October 4th to 10th is World Space Week!
While our digitisation project is well underway, with 80% of collection objects currently listed online, there is much more work to be done. Your donation will assist the Powerhouse to add high quality photographs and full background information for the 50% of online objects with incomplete listings.