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Salient. Victoria University of Wellington Students' Newspaper. Volume 32, No. 18. July 30, 1969

Tracker's Military Use Verified — Secret Data an Object

Tracker's Military Use Verified

Secret Data an Object

The American Air Force satellite tracking station recently built at Mt. John, North Canterbury, is a military installation.

Information, contradicting assurances made by the Prime Minister, Mr. Holyoake, as to the "purely scientific" nature of the station, is contained in a systems brochure distributed by the U.S.A.F.

The Baker-Nunn camera.

The Baker-Nunn camera.

Study of the brochure reveals:

The information gathered by the system is, contrary to public statements, "classified".

The project is not dedicated to "pure science" as has been claimed.

The U.S.A.F. regards the project as "military".

Salient 7 suggested that the station was yet another in the growing number of American military installations in New Zealand.

The station, scheduled to become operational on 15 October, consists of a Baker-Nunn camera facility; a super Schmidt astronomical tracking telescope with a time recording system connected to a highly accurate time standard. The camera is capable of photographing a six metre sphere at the distance of the moon.

According to information disseminated by the United States Information Service, it will be used simply to track the movement of orbital objects in space.

Heavy stress has been placed on the "scientific research" aspect of the project in official releases.

USIS release, for example, states "space scientists have long recognised the need for a sensor such as the Mt. John station in the Southern Hemisphere".

The same release claims that data obtained will be made available to the University of Canterbury "and to other academic and scientific institutions in New Zealand that may be interested".

This is provided for in the agreement between the U.S. and New Zealand governments announced 9 July last year. American civilian organisations will also share the information, including the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory.

S.A.O. is exclusively a scientific organisation which operates a world-wide network of twelve Baker-Nunn cameras and has, since late 1955, been assigned the task of the optical tracking of U.S. artificial earth satellites.

Much that is contradictory has been found in the official releases — one claims that the camera is able to record objects 3,000 times fainter than can be seen with the naked eye another replaces 3,000 with 1,000,000.

One release claims that the advantages of the Baker-Nunn system are "economy of instal-tenance", another that the lation, operation, and main-camera is extremely "hungry" on manpower.

During negotiations between the U.S.A.F. and the University of Canterbury which owns the land on which the station is sited, it was stated that the University authorities had been thoroughly briefed on the installation.

But the Vice Chancellor did not know how many buildings would be involved.

The U.S.A.F. systems brochure states that the "military Baker-Nunn stations" are an integral part of the U.S.A.F. Space track system which is managed by the Aerospace Defence Command.

The cameras are used to:

"(a) Track those objects which, because of insufficient radar cross section or too great a range, cannot be observed by other type sensors.

"(b) Provide observations for the determination of highly accurate orbits on selected satellites for system calibration, evaluation, and quality control.

"(c) To provide highly accurate observations on selected satellites for special projects, and to the scientific community."

An important part of the processing of information received from the Baker-Nunn chain is the precision reduction of film received.

Originally only one source for such precise data has been available—the photoreduction laboratory of the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory.

But according to the brochure, the U.S.A.F. has now established its own laboratory, ruling out the use of that operated by S.A.O. on three grounds.

The first is time—"although this had not been the case in the past, the timeliness with which precisely reduced data is available is now a consideration."

It is the second and third reasons given, however, which are the most interesting:

"(2) S.A.O. can handle only Unclassified date."

There are two points arising out of this. The first is the implication that if parts of the project are "classified" parts of the project are military.

Since the technical details of the camera itself are freely available it is the information gained and not the equipment used (which was developed by S.A.O. anyway) which is of a secret nature.

The second is that the statement contradicts the claim made in press releases that information will be freely available to interested scientific organisations including the S.A.O.

"(3) The sole mission of that facility (S.A.O.) is to support pure science; hence, it is not and cannot be responsive to Air Force operational needs."

This is a strange statement in light of the claim, made in New Zealand, that the U.S.A.F. stations themselves are "purely scientific" in nature.

It has been suggested that the specific military application of the Baker-Nunn system would be orbit determination for system calibration of the U.S. spy satellite system and, perhaps, orbit observation of its Soviet counterpart. This appears to be in keeping for a system operated by a "surveillance squadron".

It has been noted that the Royal Canadian Air Force operates a Baker-Nunn facility at Cold Lake, Canada, but has refused to assign it to the U.S.A.F. Space Defence Centre, despite considerable defence co-operation between the two countries, contributing only to the scientific organisation Spadats.