News Item: " Daily Examiner " October 2nd 1996
Australian Aboriginal traditional owners have set back plans to build a satellite launch base near Darwin, saying they object to having jettisoned rocket parts fall on their land.
Under $AU800 million plans by joint Australian-Thai consortium, Russian Proton rockets carrying commercial payloads of communications satellites would be fired into orbit from a site at Gunn Point, about 30 kilometres northeast of Darwin.
The consortium, Brisbane-based Space Transportation Systems (STS) and a subsidiary of Thi telecommunications giant UCOM, has started a feasibility study to try to meet federal and Northern Territory guidelines for the project.