View Single Post
  #2  
Old 10-06-2016, 01:50 PM
Kunama
...

Kunama is offline
 
Join Date: Sep 2012
Posts: 3,588
I had the good fortune to call into the Lunar Laser Ranging facility at Orroral Valley while it was operational. I was running a training exercise at the time for the AFP Mobile Command Post. The techs there were kind enough to fire up the laser for us to do some collimation testing.

Quite a clever setup, the bench mounted laser fired its beam along PVC plumbing pipes with diagonal mirrors in the elbows. Thus the beam was directed to primary mirror and out. The collimation target was a reflector set on the other side of the valley on a rockface.

Their daily tasks were tracking satellites and also measuring continental drift.
On my second visit the laser's target was the reflectors left on the lunar surface by Apollo crews.

The facility closed and its role is now undertaken at Mt Stromlo's Satellite Laser Ranging facility.
Reply With Quote