Launch site Woomera LA-8 Launch date 29 November 1967 Rocket Sparta Decay date 10 January 1968 | Reference system Geocentric Launch mass 45 kg Regime Low Earth orbit | |
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Mission duration Data: 73 orbits
Total: 642 orbits
Total: ~42 days Manufacturer Defence Science and Technology Group Similar Intasat, Brasilsat‑A1, Bulgaria 1300, San Marco 1, Prospero | ||
Weapons research establishment satellite wresat 1967
WRESAT (abbreviation for: Weapons Research Establishment Satellite) was the name of the first Australian satellite. It was named after its designer.
WRESAT was launched on 29 November 1967 using a modified American Redstone rocket with two upper stages known as a Sparta from the Woomera Test Range in South Australia. The Sparta (left over from the joint Australian-US-UK Sparta program), was donated by the United States. The launch made Australia the seventh nation to have an Earth satellite launched, and the third nation to launch one from its own territory, after the Soviet Union and the United States (the UK, Canada and Italy's satellites were also launched on American rockets unlike the French Astérix, which launched on an indigenous rocket out of Algeria).
WRESAT weighed 45 kg (99 lb) and had the form of a cone with a length of 1.59 m (5 ft 3 in) and a mouth diameter of .76 m (2 ft 6 in). It remained connected with the third rocket stage and possessed with it an overall length of 2.17 m (7 ft 1 in). WRESAT circled the Earth on a nearly polar course, until it reentered the atmosphere after 642 revolutions on 10 January 1968, over the Atlantic Ocean. The battery-operated satellite sent data during its first 73 orbits of the Earth.
