Operation "Lost-Ball" - what was it about?

 Background

In a blog post dated 27 April 2013, I wrote that I had found a reference to an Operation "Lost-Ball" on National Archives of Australia file series A 703, control symbol 580/1/1/Part 7, digital page 236. Among the 371 pages on the file, one page mentioned Operation "Lost-Ball." There was  man who had found an unusual item in his paddock in Western Australia. The file note states that this material was described as similar to a H.F. aerial. Copper cable 1/2 inch in thickness, some 45 feet long. The note went on to say that  the material was handed to "...a Mr. Mills at the Department of Supply who was nominated by NASA as the W.A. handling authority for Operation Lost-Ball." Despite searches on the Internet I failed to discover what Operation "Lost-Ball" was about. 

2021

Skip forward 8 years and I was searching the Internet when I came across a Google book tiled "NASA Historical Data Books: Programs and Projects 1958-1968." There was a mention on page 343 of Operation "Lost-Ball." It was about the search for Biosatellite 1 which had deorbited unexpectedly. I quote from that book:

"The launch and orbital phases of the Biosatellite 1 mission were successful but the retrorocket system failed, and the capsule did not reenter as planned. Although teams searched the area of Australia and the Tasman Sea where the spacecraft should have reentered when its orbit decayed in January 1967 (Operation Lost-Ball) nothing was found and no data was returned from the flight."

Credit: NASA

 Later, I found a 15 February 2021 article on a newspaper website. It was a "From the archives" piece titled "1967: U.S. Spacecraft missing in the Australian outback."  I quote it in full:

"Charter planes in satellite search.

Light aircraft are being chartered to search an area in Western Australia for the missing U.S. spacecraft Biosatellite 1. The Department of Supply is chartering the aircraft at the request of the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). The Minister for Supply (Senator Henty) said yesterday the search area was about 300 miles north-east of Perth. The area is sparsely populated and consisted mainly of low brush, swamps and dry lakes. Two or three light planes are expected to start the search today. Centre of the search area is a 40 by 100 mile area between lake Barlee and lake Moore.

The  biosatellite was launched from Cape Kennedy, Florida on December 14 last year. It was designed to come down after three days in orbit. However, its retrorocket system failed and the craft stayed aloft until it fell naturally out of orbit on Wednesday.

The satellite carried thousands of organisms, plants and other specimens to test the effects of weightlessness on them. Mr. Henty said the capsule had descended on a 34 inch bright orange and white parachute which would probably lie bunched to one side. If the capsule were found, it would be left intact to preserve the maximum experiment and emergency value. NASA had assured the government that the contents of the satellite, mainly insects and reeds were completely harmless and almost certainly dead.

There was no hazard to the finder unless he forced the capsule open, broke the small compressed air bottle or its fittings or opened the steel sphere, which contained a minor radiation source.  

An initial search on Wednesday was called off after U.S. Air Force planes had fruitlessly crisscrossed thousands of square mile of the Australian continent and the Pacific and Indian oceans. The decision to resume the search was made after scientists had made further analysis of signals from a radio beacon picked up by a U.S. aircraft flying over Australia, about the time the capsule should have been making the final stag of its descent by parachute. NASA at first discounted the possibility that the signal came from the capsule because it had the wrong modulation or "signature" and was being transmitted on a slightly lower frequency than expected. On reconsideration, however, it was decided that the difference could be accounted for by deteoration of the capsule transmitter during it two month spaceflight. 

'At least we hope that is the case' a NASA spokesman said."

What has this to do with UAP?

Over the years, there have been several instances of the finding of what were termed "mystery spheres" on the ground in various Australian states. Some have involved retrieval by teams from the Department of Defence, particularly the RAAF. There is always the possibility that these sorts of retrievals might spark off talk of "a crashed UFO was retrieved" story.

Back in January 2013, I wrote a piece about these "mystery spheres" I noted that from around 1961 the U.S.A.F. had a global reaching program (Moon Dust) to retrieve descended foreign space vehicles or part thereof. Australia participated in this program. The article I wrote provided a table detailing several such "spheres" which had been found in Australia and their likely origins. In a 2013 search for relevant National Archives of Australia files I found two Department of Supply files which described the recovery and analysis of a number of these "balls."

In summary, Operation "Lost-Ball" was a search for the remains of Biosatellite 1. The search was ultimately unsuccessful.

Update: 16 August 2021

I found a file in the National Archives of Australia file series A 463, control symbol 1967/891 titled "US [United States] Bio satellite 1 - search in Australia." The date range was 21 February 1967 - 29 March 1967. File status is "not yet examined." Held in NAA Canberra office. Creating office was the Prime Minister's Department. 

There are also several documents about the Bio satellite series held on Scribd.com, e.g. click here.