| Date: | 2003-01-20 00:23:00 | |
| Sender: | Mike Pearlman, Director, ILRS Central Bureau <slrmail@dgfi.badw.de> | |
| Subject: | [SLR-Mail] No. 1041: Loss of Stromlo Ranging Station | |
| Author: | Mike Pearlman, Director, ILRS Central Bureau | |
| Content: | ******************************************************************************** SLR Electronic Mail 2003-01-20 00:23:00 UTC Message No. 1041 ******************************************************************************** Author: Mike Pearlman, Director, ILRS Central Bureau Subject: Loss of Stromlo Ranging Station Subject: Loss of Mount Stromlo Ranging Station Subject: Loss of Stromlo ranging station Subject: Loss of Mount Stromlo Ranging Station Dear Colleagues, We have received the following distressing message from Ben Greene. The Mount Stromlo Station has been destroyed by the fires raging in the vicinity of Canberra. A photo is attached. Fortunately no one at the station was injured and no tracking records were lost. The Mount Stromlo station is one of the basic anchors of our ILRS Network. Plans are afoot to quickly rebuild. Our hearts go out to everyone at Mt Stromlo and at AUSLIG. We all forward to a rapid recovery from this very unfortunate incident. Mike Pearlman Subject: Loss of Stromlo ranging station Date sent: Mon, 20 Jan 2003 01:37:35 +1100 On Saturday 18 January a 35 km fire front approached Canberra from the south and west, driven by strong winds. The fires, unprecedented in Canberra´s history, were vast in comparison to available defences and instantly overwhelmed them. Much of Canberra´s west and south have been damaged or destroyed. Over 400 homes and several lives have been lost. Damage to property and injuries to residents are considerable. This is Australia´s worst single fire. The EOS laser ranging facility at Mount Stromlo Observatory, which is on the western fringe of Canberra, has been totally destroyed, along with the entire astronomical observatory of many buildings. The attached picture shows the laser tracking facility as at noon today [Sunday]. There is nothing salvagable from the debris. I am happy to report that no Auslig [DNM] or EOS staff were injured. No tracking data or records were lost, and we have all data necessary to rebuild immediately. Stromlo should be back on the air by mid- 2003 from the same site - this was a 100-year fire and the damage was not due the site. The fires of the past 24 hours are the most destructive fires in Australia´s history, and no site was safe. Stromlo was constructed in 6 months. On behalf of the DNM and EOS teams involved at Mount Stromlo, I can assure our international colleagues that every effort will be made to beat this record in the reconstruction. Although the fires are still with us, we have the tracking facilities recovery effort already under way. Ben Dr. Michael R. Pearlman Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics 60 Garden St. Cambridge MA 02138 tel. (617) 495-7481 fax. (617) 496-0121 e-mail. mpearlman@cfa.harvard.edu The following section of this message contains a file attachment prepared for transmission using the Internet MIME message format. If you are using Pegasus Mail, or any another MIME-compliant system, you should be able to save it or view it from within your mailer. If you cannot, please ask your system administrator for assistance. From: slrmail@dgfi.badw.de ******************************************************************************** |