304 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1961 



Woomera^ Australia. — The Weapons Eesearch Establishment,^* a 

 branch of the Department of Supply, Commonwealth of Australia, 

 operates the station independently but in close cooperation with the 

 Smithsonian. The site was completed by the Establishment on Oc- 

 tober 1, 1957. At this huge Woomera complex of scientific projects, 

 the Establishment also maintains with the U.S. Naval Eesearch Lab- 

 oratory a Minitrack station, the only one that is operated jointly with 

 a Baker-Nunn observatory. 



The nearby village has about 3,000 people. The altitude varies 

 from about 350 to 450 feet above sea level, with gentle undulations. 

 The surface is mostly rock and clay. Ten inches of rain marks a 

 good year. 



The Baker-Nunn camera house differs considerably from the Smith- 

 sonian plans in that it was built to withstand very dusty storm con- 

 ditions and to provide satisfactory housing for precision equipment 

 in a climate where the temperature rises in the summer to 120° F. 

 in the shade. The joint operation here of the Minitrack and the 

 Baker-Nunn in the one set of buildings including communications, 

 computations room, and stores, has proved the value of running one 

 large station instead of two small ones. 



San Fernando^ Spain}^ — The station is near the sea and close to 

 the Spanish Naval Observatory, in the town of San Fernando, popu- 

 lation 40,000, about 50 miles northwest of Gibraltar. 



Arrangements were initiated in mid-1956 with M. C. Herero of 

 the Battelle Institute in Madrid, and early in 1957 with Admiral de 

 la Puente, director of the Spanish Naval Observatory.^^ Construc- 

 tion of the buildings was completed in February 1958. 



The station is unique in that it is an urban establishment, but 

 the layout and buildings could be called typical of most of the other 

 Baker-Nunn stations built by the Smithsonian. These buildings were 

 among those that in late 1961 were showing signs of real deterioration ; 

 they had, of course, been intended to last only the 18 months of the 

 IGY. 



Mitdka^ Japan. — The station in Japan was established through the 

 cooperation of Dr. Takesi Nagata, Secretary of the Japanese National 

 Committee for the IGY, and Dr. Masasi Miyadi, coordinator for 



^* The Weapons Research Establishment itself tests and develops new weapons for the 

 British and the Australian Governments. It has the world's largest overland rocket 

 range, running 1,200 miles across the country, and maintains large laboratories and work- 

 shops at Salisbury near Adelaide, the capital of South Australia. Some 300 miles from 

 Adelaide, Woomera is the field-testing station and the range head. 



15 Before this site was chosen, Almeria was rejected because of heavy cloud cover, and 

 Izana In the Canary Islands because of gravity anomalies. 



" The Spanish Naval Observatory has played a distinguished role in European as- 

 tronomy ; it was one of 14 observatories that undertook the Carte du Ciel at the turn of 

 this century. The tradition of cooperative work is thus well established. 



