Page 1067 - Week 04 - Tuesday, 24 March 2015

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The fund was then officially launched by the college board chair, Michael Jamieson. Several people with close connections to the college have already contributed to the fund, which Daramalan College hope to grow with some major fundraising events over the coming years.

Officiating at this proud event was one of the senior principals of Catholic education in Canberra, Rita Daniels, the current principal of Daramalan College. She began her teaching career with the New South Wales Department of Education before returning to Canberra late in 1979, when she was first employed at Daramalan as a teacher of English. Over the next 20 years at Daramalan Rita had a variety of roles. She was appointed to the role of studies adviser and later assistant principal, curriculum, for years 11 and 12, a position she held for 11 years. In 2001 Rita Daniels was appointed principal of St Clare’s College in Griffith, ACT, a position she held until the end of 2008. In 2007 Rita held the position of acting principal of MacKillop Catholic College in Tuggeranong.

Rita Daniels has been a member of many committees associated with education in the ACT, including the ACT Board of Senior Secondary Studies and the Catholic Education Commission for the Canberra-Goulburn Archdiocese. She is currently a member of the Company of the Australian Catholic University as a nominee of the Archbishop of Canberra-Goulburn. She has also been active in professional groups for principals, including Principals Australia and the Catholic Secondary Principals Association.

Rita Daniels was affiliated with Daramalan College from 1979 to 2000 as a staff member, and she began her term as principal of Daramalan College in 2009. Congratulations to Daramalan College, principal Rita Daniels and her college board and college community for their contribution to Canberra education since 1962.

Deep Space Communication Complex

MS LAWDER (Brindabella) (4.44): Last week I attended a lunch at the Canberra Deep Space Communication Complex at Tidbinbilla in honour of its 50th anniversary. Originally known as the Tidbinbilla Deep Space Instrument Facility, and occasionally called the Tidbinbilla space tracking station, CDSCC was opened on 19 March 1965 by then Prime Minister Sir Robert Menzies. It was developed for communicating with deep space probes and to support early manned missions. It supported every Apollo lunar mission and handled telemetry, command and control communications for the landings of NASA’s twin Mars rovers, Spirit and Opportunity. It was one of three tracking stations in the ACT; the others, which have since been decommissioned, being Honeysuckle Creek and Orroral Valley.

Contrary to popular belief through the movie The Dish, the Parkes radio telescope did not provide the vision of Neil Armstrong stepping down onto the surface of the moon—that video link came through Parkes and through Honeysuckle Creek, although the antenna DSS46, which was used in the moon landing, was later moved to Tidbinbilla. The two Voyager spacecraft continue to be in contact with earth through Tidbinbilla’s 70-metre dish, known as Deep Space Station 43 or DSS43, which is the largest steerable antenna in the southern hemisphere. It has supported the Magellan and Galileo missions, the Hubble space telescope and many more missions.


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