Mystery rocket found in S.A. desert

Found: one rocket. Hardly used. Very big. Contact The University of Queensland for more details.

UQ’s HyShot team, which is searching the South Australian desert for a missing scramjet and second stage rocket from last year’s Woomera tests, came across a mystery rocket yesterday.

An aerial group led by Professor Gordon Grigg of UQ’s School of Life Sciences spotted what they thought "might be something" from a low-flying Cessna 182 in the Australian Defence Force`s Woomera Prohibited Area, more than 500km north of Adelaide.

A ground party from UQ’s Centre for Hypersonics, led by Dr Allan Paull, travelled two hours across difficult terrain in a four-wheel drive to reach the area.

"We found something all right. It was pretty well identical to our rocket, same colour but the nose cone was bigger," Dr Paull said.

"I don’t know whether we should put an ad in the paper."

The ground team also comprising Dr Ross Paull and Myles Frost has been camped at the Nominal Impact Point (NIP) calculated from telemetry and other data.

Professor Grigg said the aerial team also comprising Dr Tony Pople and Lyn Beard had been conducting a saturation survey of a small, prescribed area and would widen the search area today.

Dr Paull said the ground team had walked up and down rough country for three days.

"We’re scratched. We’re sunburned. We’re swatting flies and trying to keep hydrated," he said.

"We’re cheered by the fact that a local station heard our rocket go over, so that’s consistent with our predictions for where it is.

"One scenario might be that it buried itself when it landed in which case it might never be found."

The team will continue the search until tomorrow and are expected to return to Brisbane at the weekend.

Media: For further information, contact Jan King at UQ Communications, 0413 601 248.