HONEYSUCKLE CREEK MEMORIAL PAGE

The Honeysuckle Creek Tracking Station, located just outside Canberra in the Namadgi National Park, received the first transmission from Neil Armstrong on the moon at 12.56:20PM (EST), 21st July 1969.   The video footage of those first steps on the moon, received through the Honeysuckle Creek facility, were screened on public broadcasts throughout the world.  For more information, you can read terrific first hand accounts at http://www.tip.net.au/~jsaxon/Book.htm (This website has excerpts from Track to the Moon by Hamish Lindsay, available from Amazon.com) and http://www.pcug.org.au/~mdinn/TheDish/dish1.htm (The truth about the dish).

Photograph of the dish at
Honeysuckle creek (source unknown).

Honeysuckle Creek was formally dedicated on the 17th of March, 1967.  To support the Apollo program, NASA's Manned Space Flight Network installed 26 metre antennas at Goldstone USA, Honeysuckle Creek AUS, and Fresnedillas Spain.

In 1985 the antenna at Honeysuckle Creek was relocated to Tidbinbilla (part of the Deep Space Network, Canberra Deep Space Communication Complex
Discovery Drive, Tidbinbilla http://www.cdscc.nasa.gov/), and the site was closed.  Some of the building foundations and the dish site can still be seen.  The site is now open to the public and is well sign posted.

Recently, in commemoration of the thirtieth anniversary of the Moon landing, the site was officially opened as a camping ground, with BBQ and picnic facilities for both campers and casual visitors.