Celebration and Dedication of an IEEE Milestone at Parkes, Australia
Trevor S. Bird, University of Technology Sydney, Australia

Introduction
On the 20th July 1969, the first humans landed on the Moon and pictures of the first steps and walkwere seen around the world live by television. This was the first time a human had stepped onto thesurface of another heavenly body. The signals were received by two receiving stations in Australia
firstly at the 24m NASA station located at Honeysuckle Creek [1‐2], near Canberra, and the 64m
Parkes radiotelescope [3], which had been specially equipped to be a back‐up receiver. Thesestations were part of an international earth station receiving network established to support NASA.
As part of the 50th anniversary celebrations of this event, the IEEE has recognized Parkes andHoneysuckle Creeks’ involvement through an IEEE Milestone. This Milestone was recognized by adedication and unveiling of a plaque at Parkes on the 11th October 2019. The station at Honeysuckle
Creek no longer exists as it was disassembled and parts moved to Tidbinbilla, the location of acurrent NASA earth station. However, as Parkes delivered the higher quality signal for most of theMoon excursion and as it still is an important operational radiotelescope on the international scene,
it was the logical location for the IEEE Milestone dedication.
The IEEE Milestones program honors significant technical achievements across electrical andelectronic engineering. It is a program of the IEEE History Committee that is administered throughthe IEEE History Center. Milestones recognize the technological innovation and excellence for thebenefit of humanity found across products, services, papers and patents. Milestones are may be
proposed by any IEEE member or any IEEE Section / Society, and are sponsored by an IEEE
Organizational Unit ‐ such as an IEEE section, society, chapter or student branch. After detailed
review by an IEEE History Committee Milestone advocate, then to recommendation by the IEEE
History Committee and approval by the IEEE Board of Directors, a bronze plaque commemorating
the achievement is placed at an appropriate site with an accompanying dedication ceremony.
On the Moon
In the journey to the Moon from the Command module, the Lunar Module had been expertly piloted
to a safe landing spot in the Sea of Tranquility by astronaut Neil Armstrong [4]. As Armstrong madehis way down the ladder of the Lunar Module, he deployed the TV camera. Goldstone andHoneysuckle Creek were monitoring the FM portion of the signal from the Lunar Module, waiting fora TV signal. Just before he set foot on the moon, Houston selected the clearer video coming from
Honeysuckle Creek. As the telescope can only go down to about 30 degrees to the horizontal, Parkes
received a signal about 7 mins into the landing. The signal was used for the rest of Moon landing
lasting about 3 hours as it was superior. A TV camera recorded the picture received on a monitor atParkes and this signal was transmitted to Goldstone in the US. Originally, Parkes was to be a backup
for main station at Goldstone but after the excitement of the landing, the astronauts decided to go
onto the Moon’s surface earlier than planned. At that time, Australia was in the prime position toreceive wideband signals (TV) from the moon. While the TV from Parkes went direct to Sydney, therest of Parkes data was sent (via Sydney) to Honeysuckle Creek, which demodulated Parkes data andcombined it with its own for transmission to Houston. Humanity was able to witness this significant
moment in history, with the greatest possible clarity, thanks to the Parkes radiotelescope. The TVpictures were distributed to 600 million people watching it live around the world. The TV was finally1switched off by the astronauts, just over 5 hours later, and 2 ½ hours after the end of the moonwalk. It is because of this historic episode as well as the major technical achievement, which allowed
this to happen, that the Parkes Radio Telescope is the location of this IEEE Milestone.
The Parkes RadiotelescopeThis unique instrument was commissioned by CSIRO in the late 1950s to very stringent
specifications. Freeman, Fox and Partners of London prepared a design that met these requirements.
The design was completed in 1958. It was fabricated by Machinenfabrik Augsburg Nurnberg AG(MAN) of West Germany. On‐site construction commenced in May 1960 and it was official opening
ceremony by the Australian Governor General on 31st Oct. 1961. Parkes was the second reflector
radiotelescope after Jodrell Bank in the UK and it was used as a test bed for several future radio
telescopes, then in the planning stage. It has several unique technical features including a small
analog computer known as the master equatorial, which was designed by Barnes Wallis FRS of WWII
Dambusters fame, that is in the concrete column tower supporting the telescope. The dish is ‘slaved’
to follow its master, which can be programmed to follow a celestial track and thus control thedirection of the telescope. The Parkes dish has a longer focal length than at Jodrell Bank and thisenables it to be more efficiently fed. The first efficient feed was the new concept corrugated horn
designed by Australians Harry Minnett and Bruce Thomas FIEEE in 1966 to match the focal field of aparabolic dish [5‐6]. The corrugated horn has, since the 1970s, become dominant in ground station
applications. Both features and some others were first used on the Parkes radiotelescope [7].
Therefore in 1969, the Parkes radio telescope was superbly positioned to receive the weak signals
under adverse local weather conditions. This was just as well as reception from the Moon at Parkes
took place in very high winds, gusting to 110 km/h (68 mph), when the dish was fully tipped over at
60 degrees zenith angle (30 degrees elevation), risking damage to the dish to keep the antenna
pointed at the moon during the Moonwalk
Milestone Dedication on October 11, 2019.
The dedication of the Milestone was attended by about 50 people, which included the IEEE
President‐elect Toshio Fukuda, the Region 10 Director Akinori Nishihara, representatives of the IEEE
NSW Section, which nominated Parkes for the Milestone, and representatives of most Australianscience and engineering academies and organisations such as the Australian Academy of Science(AAS) and Engineers Australia. The Antennas & Propagation Society and our History Committee
supported the nomination and I represented the Society. Dr John Reynolds who represented theCEO of CSIRO and is Officer in Charge, CSIRO Parkes, welcomed all attendees and Dr Fukuda
introduced IEEE, the Milestone program and pointed out this IEEE Milestone was the very first forAustralia (Figure 1). David Burger, representing IEEE History Committee, gave more details of theMilestone program and Parkes’ importance and on behalf of the NSW History Committee, I outlined
the significance of the Parkes radiotelescope and the Moon landing and the citation. He presentedJohn Reynolds with an IEEE medallion struck to celebrate the Moon landing and certificates to thenominating committee. We were lucky enough to have present one of the people involved in 1969
at Parkes. David Cooke who was with CSIRO at the time and oversaw the receivers there (Figure 2).
He told the group about his experiences and issues such as strong winds blowing during thereception. Some details of the Honeysuckle Creek station and the first signal reception was given by
Dr Ed Kruzins, who is currently in charge of the NASA station at Tinbinbilla. The speeches concluded
with thanks to all speakers and attendees by the Chair of IEEE NSW Section, Sasha Nikolic. Theattendees then walked a short distance toward the telescope where a plinth had been placed in theground. The IEEE Milestone plaque was mounted on the top of the plinth and for the unveiling
ceremony was covered by an IEEE banner. After a few words describing the significance of the2occasion, the IEEE President‐elect removed the banner to applause from the crowd (Figures 3 and 4).
Some local media were present, and a report was televised later that evening in a news bulletin [8].
Another notable event about the day was that Parkes is in a region were there has been a reduced
rainfall and, therefore, when it rained when we enjoyed a luncheon provided by the Dish café there
was excitement. A gala dinner was held In the evening following the Milestone dedication at Parkes
attended by all invitees to celebrate the occasion. There were several speeches including fromPresident‐elect Fukuda, Barbara Newton deputy mayor of Parkes, Professor Ron Ekers representing
AAS and Bruce Howard representing Engineers Australia.
Like the 1969 event, inclement weather affected the Milestone Ceremony, with torrential drought
breaking rains and gale forces winds inundating the site just minutes after the unveiling event.

Figure 1: IEEE President‐elect welcomes guests to the IEEE Milestone dedication and plaqueunveiling.

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Figure 2: View of audience at dedication. Speaker is David Cooke.

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Figure 3: Unveiling of plaque by IEEE President‐elect Fukuda assisted by David Burger representing
IEEE History Committee.

Figure 4: Milestone plaque on plinth beside the Parkes radiotelescope.

References:[1] H. Lindsay, ‘Honeysuckle Creek Tracking Station: 1967–1981: Apollo 11’,https://honeysucklecreek.net/msfn_missions/Apollo_11_mission/hl_apollo11.html(https://honeysucklecreek.net/msfn_missions/Apollo_11_mission/hl_apollo11.html)[2] A.A. Tink, ‘Honeysuckle Creek: the story of Tom Reid, a little dish and Neil Armstrong's first step’,
NewSouth Publishing, 2018. ISBN 978‐1‐74223‐608‐75

[3] B. Collis, ‘Fields of discovery: Australia’s CSIRO’, Allen & Unwin, Crows Nest, Australia, 2002, pp.
386‐400.
[4] J. Hansen, ‘The First Man’, Simon & Schuster Ltd, 2018 ISSBN: 9781471177873[5] H.C. Minnett & B. McA. Thomas, ‘Fields in the image space of symmetrical focusing reflectors’,
Proc. IEE, Vol. 115, pp. 1419‐1430, Oct. 1968.
[6] H.C. Minnett & B. McA. Thomas, ‘A method of synthesizing radiation patterns with axial
symmetry’, IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagat, Vol. AP‐14, pp. 654‐656, Sept. 1966.
[7] T.S. Bird, ‘The early development of corrugated horns’, IEEE Antennas & Propagation Society
Symposium, Puerto Rico, USA, 27 June ‐ 1 July 2016, pp. 1009‐1010.
[8] https://www.facebook.com/9NewsCentralWest/videos/658216071367100/ .

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