Non-Defence Trials

EXPRESS Re-entry Capsule Mission

The EXPRESS mission was a collaborative program between Germany and Japan and involved the targeted landing of an unmanned re-entry capsule within the WTF. The WTF was selected by the German Space Agency in view of the large and safe landing area. Approval for the landing was granted by the Australian government following a comprehensive risk assessment including independent re-entry modelling of the landing footprint. In readiness for the orbital and re-entry phases, the Tjaliri Tracking Station was deployed in the WTF to the west of Coober Pedy. This temporary facility provided a full Telemetry, Tracking and Command capability, and included an MPS-36 tracking radar (pictured) and an Intelsat earth station link to the control centre in Germany.

The Russian-built EXPRESS spacecraft, carrying German and Japanese microgravity and re-entry technology experiments, was launched from the Kagoshima Space Center in Japan on 15 January 1995. However, due to an anomaly with the launch vehicle, the spacecraft was injected into a very low elliptical orbit and re-entered the atmosphere after only 2.5 orbits. While the EXPRESS capsule did not land within the WTF as intended, the Australian support was highly commended and pioneered the approach for future spacecraft re-entry and landing programs at Woomera (refer to Hayabusa re-entry capsule mission).