Lancelin: Total Solar Eclipse

Total eclipse observed at Hamelin Bay;
350 Km south of Lancelin:
Photo - Mick Wolf

Original launcher and full scale model of rocket at Bullcreek Aviation Museum: Photo – Kerrie Dougherty

In June 1974 a total solar eclipse occurred over the south-west corner of Western Australia. A team of US scientists and engineers from Sandia Laboratories arrived in Lancelin 125 km north of Perth with a van, a tracking antenna, two launch pedestals and two 2-stage Terrier-Sandhawk rockets to launch their experiments during the total eclipse.

These rockets carried a telemetry package, a spectrograph and a photo data acquisition module observing the width of the Lyman-alpha line in order to measure the Sun’s coronal temperature distribution. This could only be done for the short time the rockets were above the Earth’s atmosphere.

Umbra (total shadow) dark grey arc; penumbra (partial shadow) mid grey area:
Image - HM Nautical Almanac Office

The rockets were successfully launched in view of a small group of spectators at 13.11 West Australian time and reached a height of 320 km. A little while later the telemetry technicians, on a recovery boat, winched the research packages out of the sea off the Lancelin coast.

A display of the launcher and a ‘dummy’ rocket can be seen at the Bullcreek Aviation Museum, near Perth.

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