The firestorms that devastated the Canberra region at the weekend, killing four people, also forced NASA鈥檚 Deep Space Network facility offline for four hours, it has emerged.
The DSN installation, 40 km from the Australian capital, is responsible for tracking and controlling deep space spacecraft from the southern hemisphere. There are two other tracking stations in the northern hemisphere.
The fires reached the fence line on Saturday, but were held off by the local rural fire services and DSN staff. Nonetheless, the communication dishes were taken out of service and placed in an upright position to limit the risk of them catching burning embers or being damaged by the high winds.
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It takes 鈥渁n extraordinary event鈥� to force the facility offline, says Canberra DSN spokesperson Glen Nagle. On Tuesday, the visitor center was still closed and people were being advised not to enter the general area.
Australia鈥檚 prime minister John Howard described the fires as the worst he had seen, caused by a 鈥渇reak鈥� combination of zero humidity, extreme drought conditions, and high winds.
The DSN frequently works at full capacity and is expected to be particularly busy in 2003. Any damage to the Canberra facility would be a major blow to its ability send instructions to deep space spacecraft and receive data back. In particular, the Canberra DSN will play a critical role in the landing of the next generation of Mars Rover in January 2004.
The bush fires did destroy Australia鈥檚 oldest research observatory at Mount Stromlo. The destruction terminated of a number of major projects, including a digital survey of the southern hemisphere sky. It also incinerated a AUS$5 million 鈥渋maging spectrograph鈥� that Stromlo had built for the Gemini Observatory telescope in Hawaii.