Maralinga is Pitjantjatjara Aboriginal dialect for "Field of Thunder". Maralinga was developed in South Australia, about 650 miles north west of Adelaide, as a permanent nuclear proving test ground site, following a request of the British Government in 1954 and, after its completion in 1956, was the location of all British trials conducted in Australia. It was developed as a joint British/Australian facility with a shared funding arrangement. Following two major trial series in 1956 and 1957, a number of minor trials, assessment tests and experimental programs (dating from 1959) - in excess of 1000 experiments altogether - were conducted at the range up until 1963. The 1956 tests included the very first launching of a British atomic weapon from an aircraft.
A total of seven nuclear bombs were tested at Maralinga, the first was similar in size to the "Fat Man" plutonium bomb dropped on Nagasaki during World War II. Maralinga was officially closed following a clean-up operation in 1967 but further clean up operations followed, the final section of 3200 square kilometres was formally returned to its traditional Aborigine Tjarutja owners in December 2009.
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