The Australian Defence Satellite Communications Station (ADSCS) is located at Kojarena, 30 km east of Geraldton, Western Australia

Western Australia

Western Australia is a state of Australia, occupying the entire western third of the Australian continent. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Great Australian Bight and Indian Ocean to the south, the Northern Territory to the north-east and South Australia to the south-east...

. The ADSCS is part of the US signals intelligence

SIGINT

Signals intelligence is intelligence-gathering by interception of signals, whether between people , whether involving electronic signals not directly used in communication , or combinations of the two...

 and analysis network ECHELON

ECHELON

ECHELON is a name used in global media and in popular culture to describe a signals intelligence collection and analysis network operated on behalf of the five signatory states to the UK–USA Security Agreement...

. The station has four satellite tracking dishes which intercept communications from Russian, Chinese, Japanese, Indian and Pakistani regional satellites and international communications satellites (INTELSAT

Intelsat

Intelsat, Ltd. is a communications satellite services provider.Originally formed as International Telecommunications Satellite Organization , it was—from 1964 to 2001—an intergovernmental consortium owning and managing a constellation of communications satellites providing international broadcast...

s and COMSAT

COMSAT

The Communications Satellite Corporation is a global telecommunications company, based in the USA, and with branches in Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, Mexico, Peru, Venezuela and several other countries in the Americas. It is present also in Turkey...

s), throughout the Indian Ocean

Indian Ocean

The Indian Ocean is the third largest of the world's oceanic divisions, covering approximately 20% of the water on the Earth's surface. It is bounded on the north by the Indian Subcontinent and Arabian Peninsula ; on the west by eastern Africa; on the east by Indochina, the Sunda Islands, and...

 and South-East Asian regions. Staff are drawn from the U.S. National Security Agency

National Security Agency

The National Security Agency/Central Security Service is a cryptologic intelligence agency of the United States Department of Defense responsible for the collection and analysis of foreign communications and foreign signals intelligence, as well as protecting U.S...

 and the Australian Defence Signals Directorate

Defence Signals Directorate

Defence Signals Directorate is an Australian government intelligence agency responsible for signals intelligence and information security .-Overview:According to its website, DSD has two principal functions:...

, and the site is operated under the UKUSA Agreement

UKUSA Community

The United Kingdom – United States of America Agreement is a multilateral agreement for cooperation in signals intelligence among the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. It was first signed in March 1946 by the United Kingdom and the United States and later...

.

In 2007, it was announced that an additional but separate US military communications facility would be built within the grounds of the ADSCGS. It will consist of three 19-metre antennas and two smaller antennas making up a joint US-Australian ground station for the US Department of Defense Mobile User Objective System

Mobile User Objective System

The Mobile User Objective System is an array of geosynchronous satellites being developed for the United States Department of Defense to provide global satellite communications narrowband connectivity for communications use by the United States and allies.-Overview:The Mobile User Objective...

, a narrow-band networked satellite constellation for Ultra-High-Frequency satellite communications enabling secure all-weather and all-terrain 3-G mobile telecommunications.