Woomera, unofficially Woomera village, is the domestic area of RAAF Base Woomera. Since 1947 it has been a Defence-owned and operated facility. The village is located in the Far North region of South Australia, but is on Commonwealth-owned land and within the area designated as the Woomera Prohibited Area (WPA). The village is approximately north of Adelaide. In common usage, "Woomera" refers to the wider RAAF Woomera Range Complex (WRC), a large Australian Defence Force aerospace and systems testing range (the Woomera Test Range (WTR)) covering an area of approximately and is operated by the Royal Australian Air Force.
Woomera "village" is part of RAAF Base Woomera which, along with the Woomera Test Range (WTR), forms the larger entity known as the Woomera Range Complex (WRC), promulgated by Chief of Air Force (CAF) in June 2014. As at the the Woomera Village had a population of 146, and its usual population varies between 150 and 200 people, yet the village can provide accommodation and services for up to 500 people per day. Although the complex is closed to the public, Woomera village, and its four museum elements, is open to the public all year round. The location of the Woomera Village can be described as being in the outback desert area of South Australia. It is approximately north-west of Adelaide and is in the State region known as the Far North. There are 27 pastoral stations within the Woomera Prohibited Area, which essentially forms the ground space of the Woomera Test Range, and there are currently four major mines (2013) – Challenger, Prominent Hill, Peculiar Knob, and Cairn Hill. There is also a long-established precious gems (mainly opal) field near the Coober Pedy end of the Stuart Highway, which cuts through the middle of the Range.
Etymology The settlement draws its name, woomera, from a suggestion from RAAF Group Captain Alfred George Pither and was subsequently chosen by the Board of the Long Range Weapons Establishment in April 1947. The new Village was established on Commonwealth land procured for the purpose, and named after the Aboriginal spear throwing implement the woomera which extends the range a spear can be thrown.
History
Establishment Woomera, formerly a rocket range site located north-west of Port Augusta, shares its name with an Aboriginal throwing tool.Place Names of South Australia, 1990, Geoffrey.H.Manning, p.346. Construction of Woomera Village began in mid-1947 to cater for thousands of people moving there as part of the Anglo-Australian Project. The project lasted for 34 years and saw Woomera become one of the most secret allied establishments in operation during the Cold War. During its heyday (1949–71), the village population reached around 7,000 as people lived and worked at Woomera and at Koolymilka campsite near Range Head, approximately west of Woomera village within the Woomera Prohibited Area. However, by the end of the 1960s, the Anglo-Australian Joint Project was rapidly winding down following the UK Government's reduction in further experimental work.
Woomera Village initially operated as a "closed town" between 1947 and 1982, when the facility supported the operations of the Woomera Rocket Range during the Anglo-Australia Project. Since 1982, the general public has been able to visit and stay at Woomera. However, only Australian Government (mostly Department of Defence) personnel and contractors to the Commonwealth are able to live at Woomera on a permanent basis. The settlement was established in 1947 as a result of the Department of Defence establishment of the adjacent rocket testing range. The Woomera Village grew rapidly from 1950. A school opened that year with two teachers and by 1955 had grown to be a "Higher Primary" school from Year 1 to Intermediate (Year 10) with over 300 pupils.
Following its construction over 1947–53, Woomera Village essentially operated under a specialised Commonwealth/Defence township management model rather than a local government (council) model. At the height of its operations (1947–99), over 7,000 people lived in Woomera Village. To service the needs of the town during this period, the Woomera Board, staffed by members of the Defence community at Woomera elected to the Board by town residents, essentially acted in the role normally provided by a local government council. However, the creation of a Defence Estate management organisation in the 1990s shifted the focus of the Board's activities away from estate and infrastructure management toward principally that of a base welfare organisation supporting the small permanent community and the large number of transit Defence personnel who deploy to Woomera each year. Woomera Village, when originally established, was administered by the Long Range Weapons Establishment (LRWE) under the terms of the Anglo-Australian Joint Project. LRWE was based at to the north of Adelaide city, the site now occupied by Defence Science and Technology Group (DSTG).
When the Anglo-Australian Joint Project began to wind down in the early 1970s, the village population began to rapidly drop from its peak of about 7000 residents in the mid-1960s. However, with the establishment of the USAF/ADF Joint Defence Communications Facility in 1969 at the nearby Nurrungar site, approximately south of Woomera, along with its 1100 permanent staff, the village population stabilized at around 4,500 people (including around 800 children). In the late 1990s, as the Nurrungar program was winding down, the ADF reassessed the role of Woomera in its future force structure. What became apparent to the ADF at that time was that the Woomera Test Range was the only land-based test range left in the Western world capable of testing the next (or what is now termed "5th") generation of weapons systems within a fully instrumented, land-based, specialized test and evaluation range. This assessment was to result, positively, in redefining the future role and strategic importance of the Woomera Range Complex within Australia's long-term Defence requirements.
Defence facilities
Woomera Village is a Department of Defence–owned-and-operated facility. RAAF Base Woomera, when it was established in January 2015, also included the RAAF Woomera Airfield, which is approximately north of Woomera Village. The aerodrome lies within the "Red Zone" of the Woomera Prohibited Area (WPA), and public access to this part of the base is not permitted. Woomera Village, however, is within a "Green Zone" of the WPA and thus public access to the facilities and services of Woomera, including the several museums located in this historic site, is permitted year-round. Visitors may also stay in the Defence-operated Eldo Hotel, and there is a privately operated public caravan park at the entrance to Woomera Village.
While the WRC operates under the higher management of Woomera Range Headquarters (WRHQ), located at RAAF Base Edinburgh, the operation of the Base itself is co-managed by the RAAF's Combat Support Group (CSG) and Defence Estate and Infrastructure Group (DEIG). CSG focus on the operational aspects of the base's role, while DEIG focuses on ensuring the base's (and the Range's) facilities and general infrastructure remains fit-for-purpose to support the Range's activities. Woomera Village has always been, and continues to be, the domestic support facility for the Woomera Range Complex.
, the WPA covers an area of approximately and forms the essential ground area of the whole Range Complex. The Nurrungar Test Area (NTA) is south of Woomera, and although not within the WPA, it is under the operational control of Woomera Range Headquarters in Adelaide. The WPA is the world's largest land-based instrumented defence systems test and evaluation range facility.Area of WPA was recalculated by Defence in June 2013, pending new legislation, and reduced in size by in November 2014 when Section 400 at Maralinga was officially excised from the WPA and handed back to the traditional owners. Note: The updated area is promulgated on the WPACO website
The complex was established in support of the Anglo-Australian Joint Project. This cold-war project focussed on the development of long-range weapons systems, principally to counter the growing intercontinental ballistic missile threat from the Soviet Union. The cold-war heyday of the Range was 1947 to about 1972. In 1980, the Anglo-Australia Project was closed and the range itself saw little use until about 1991, when the RAAF's Aircraft Research and Development Unit (ARDU) took over the old instrumented range from Defence Science and Technology Organisation (DSTO). Since that time, the RAAF has gradually assumed full control of the entire facility. The complex today is much smaller than it was in 1947, but still covers one-seventh of South Australia. Although there are now several major mines established within the WPA, the Woomera support base is the only permanently established township facility in the WPA.
Officially, the village area is referred to as "Base Sector South" of RAAF Base Woomera, and like RAAF Williams at Point Cook in Victoria, this part of the complex is open to public access. This is principally so that tourists can access the significant historical displays and museums which cover the range's air and space activities since its establishment in 1947. At the Woomera Heritage Centre, there are also displays covering the Indigenous and Pioneer heritage of the region. In particular, there is a dedicated section on Len Beadell, who became something of an outback legend as a Royal Australian Survey Corps Sergeant surveyor (1947–48) and road builder (1953–63). There is also a memorial cairn for Len Beadell and his wife Anne in the nearby Woomera Cemetery.
At the , the village had 146 permanent residents, whereas the operation of the complex may be up to an additional 500–700 personnel per day. Public visitors (estimated at in excess of 70,000 per year) generally find Woomera village to be a very quiet place. Principally this is due to the fact that the base is essentially the dinner, bed, and breakfast facility for Defence personnel. Today, the complex embraces a much wider range of Defence systems technology and tactics testing and evaluation activities. In terms of space activities, only a small number of sub-orbital sounding rocket tests are conducted. In June 2010, however, Woomera hosted the return of the Hayabusa Deep Space Probe. This was the first planned space re-entry to Australian soil and created another milestone for the Range.
Settlement history
Nurrungar project
In 1969, as the Anglo-Australia Project was winding down, the United States Air Force (USAF) began construction and installation of the Nurrungar Joint Tracking Facility. This facility was located approximately south of Woomera. Over the next 30 years, this project ensured the maintenance of Woomera village infrastructure, with improvements and modernization of facilities. During the period of operations, around 1,100 USAF and ADF personnel and their families were accommodated at Woomera, and the population was around 4,000.
The new era of Woomera When the Nurrungar Project came to an end in 1999, the future of the village looked bleak. However, the RAAF was set to take over the range following a long-term study of Defence needs through to 2035, which found that the Woomera Test Range was the only test and evaluation range left in the western world capable of testing the next generation of ADF defence systems within its land borders – and it could be utilized all year round given its climatic advantages. Additionally, the Federal Government decided to establish several immigration detention centres around the country to deal with a growing number of illegal immigrants and asylum seekers arriving by sea, and Woomera was chosen as a site for such a facility.