NW041 Sparta Wresat - Australia's first satellite launch vehicle

In July 1951, Von Braun and his team began to build a large guided missile - Redstone. To power this missile, North American Aviation scaled up a V-2 engine, that burned a liquid oxygen-alcohol fuel. During the powered portion of flight, control of the missile came from carbon vanes located in the engine exhaust and after that from air rudders on the tip of each fin. It was determined that the range and accuracy could be increased if the warhead separated from the booster after engine burnout. The warhead section had four air vanes to control the final trajectory to target after separation. The Redstone was considered an intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM) and was designed to be launched in the field and became operational in 1958.
Project SPARTA (SPecial Anti-missile Research Tests, Australia) was a joint USA/UK/Australian project designed to observe different types of reentry vehicles. USA supplied the Redstones and UK authorized the use of the Woomera Range in Australia. After 9 SPARTA launches one Redstone was left over. The Australian government obtained permission to use this Redstone as a satellite launcher. By firing the third stage upward instead of downward, a 160 pound satellite could achieve orbit. A satellite named WRESAT, was built and tested by Weapons Research Establishment (WRE) in Australia, and launched on November 29, 1967. To this day it remains the only satellite launched by Australia, from Australia.