Pine Gap
Encyclopedia
Satellite
In the context of spaceflight, a satellite is an object which has been placed into orbit by human endeavour. Such objects are sometimes called artificial satellites to distinguish them from natural satellites such as the Moon....
tracking station at
23.799°S 133.737°E, some 18 kilometres (11.2 mi) south-west of the town of Alice Springs
Alice Springs, Northern Territory
Alice Springs is the second largest town in the Northern Territory of Australia. Popularly known as "the Alice" or simply "Alice", Alice Springs is situated in the geographic centre of Australia near the southern border of the Northern Territory...
in the centre of Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
which is operated by both Australia and the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. The facility has become a key part of the local economy.
It consists of a large computer complex with eight radome
Radome
A radome is a structural, weatherproof enclosure that protects a microwave or radar antenna. The radome is constructed of material that minimally attenuates the electromagnetic signal transmitted or received by the antenna. In other words, the radome is transparent to radar or radio waves...
s protecting antennas and has over 800 employees. It is officially called the Joint Defence Facility Pine Gap since 1988, previously it was known as Joint Defence Space Research Facility. It is believed to be one of the largest 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...
ground stations and appears to be physically and operationally similar to the American signals intelligence facilities at Buckley Air Force Base
Buckley Air Force Base
Buckley Air Force Base is a United States Air Force base in Aurora, Colorado, that was established by the U.S. Army in 1943. The base was named in honor of the World War I Army pilot 1LT John Harold Buckley.-Overview:...
, Colorado
Colorado
Colorado is a U.S. state that encompasses much of the Rocky Mountains as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of the Great Plains...
and Menwith Hill
RAF Menwith Hill
RAF Menwith Hill is a Royal Air Force station near Harrogate, North Yorkshire which provides communications and intelligence support services to the United Kingdom and the United States of America...
, United Kingdom. United States government personnel at Pine Gap are believed to be mostly from the 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 subordinate service-associated agencies as well as the Central Intelligence Agency
Central Intelligence Agency
The Central Intelligence Agency is a civilian intelligence agency of the United States government. It is an executive agency and reports directly to the Director of National Intelligence, responsible for providing national security intelligence assessment to senior United States policymakers...
.
As published in ERSA by CASA
Civil Aviation Safety Authority
The Civil Aviation Safety Authority is the Australian national aviation authority , the government statutory authority responsible for the regulation of civil aviation.-History:...
the airspace around Pine Gap is the only area in Australia designated as "prohibited" which prohibits entering and overflying the airspace up to a height of Flight Level
Flight level
A Flight Level is a standard nominal altitude of an aircraft, in hundreds of feet. This altitude is calculated from the International standard pressure datum of 1013.25 hPa , the average sea-level pressure, and therefore is not necessarily the same as the aircraft's true altitude either...
180 (approximately 18000 ft or 5,486.4 m).
Operations
Operations started in 1970 when about 400 American families moved to Central AustraliaCentral Australia
Central Australia/Alice Springs Region is one of the five regions in the Northern Territory. The term Central Australia is used to describe an area centred on Alice Springs in Australia. It is sometimes referred to as Centralia; likewise the people of the area are sometimes called Centralians...
. In 1999, with the Australian Government refusing to give details to an Australian Senate
Australian Senate
The Senate is the upper house of the bicameral Parliament of Australia, the lower house being the House of Representatives. Senators are popularly elected under a system of proportional representation. Senators are elected for a term that is usually six years; after a double dissolution, however,...
committee on treaties, Intelligence expert Professor Des Ball from the Australian National University
Australian National University
The Australian National University is a teaching and research university located in the Australian capital, Canberra.As of 2009, the ANU employs 3,945 administrative staff who teach approximately 10,000 undergraduates, and 7,500 postgraduate students...
was called to give an outline of Pine Gap. According to Professor Ball, since 9 December 1966 when the Australian and United States governments signed the Pine Gap treaty, Pine Gap had grown from the original two antennas to about eighteen in 1999. The number of staff had increased from around 400 in the early 1980s to 600 in the early 1990s and then to an expected 1,000. The biggest expansion occurred after the end of the Cold War
Cold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
.
Ball described the facility as the ground control and processing station for geosynchronous satellite
Geosynchronous satellite
A geosynchronous Satellite is a satellite whose orbit on the Earth repeats regularly over points on the Earth over time. If such a satellite's orbit lies over the equator, the orbit is circular and its angular velocity is the same as the earth's, then it is called a geostationary satellite...
s engaged in 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...
collection, outlining four categories of signals collected:
- telemetryTelemetryTelemetry is a technology that allows measurements to be made at a distance, usually via radio wave transmission and reception of the information. The word is derived from Greek roots: tele = remote, and metron = measure...
from advanced weapons development, such as ballistic missileBallistic missileA ballistic missile is a missile that follows a sub-orbital ballistic flightpath with the objective of delivering one or more warheads to a predetermined target. The missile is only guided during the relatively brief initial powered phase of flight and its course is subsequently governed by the...
s, used for arms controlArms controlArms control is an umbrella term for restrictions upon the development, production, stockpiling, proliferation, and usage of weapons, especially weapons of mass destruction...
verification; - signals from anti-missile and anti-aircraft radarRadarRadar is an object-detection system which uses radio waves to determine the range, altitude, direction, or speed of objects. It can be used to detect aircraft, ships, spacecraft, guided missiles, motor vehicles, weather formations, and terrain. The radar dish or antenna transmits pulses of radio...
s; - transmissions intended for communications satelliteCommunications satelliteA communications satellite is an artificial satellite stationed in space for the purpose of telecommunications...
s; and - microwaveMicrowaveMicrowaves, a subset of radio waves, have wavelengths ranging from as long as one meter to as short as one millimeter, or equivalently, with frequencies between 300 MHz and 300 GHz. This broad definition includes both UHF and EHF , and various sources use different boundaries...
emissions, such as long-distance telephoneTelephoneThe telephone , colloquially referred to as a phone, is a telecommunications device that transmits and receives sounds, usually the human voice. Telephones are a point-to-point communication system whose most basic function is to allow two people separated by large distances to talk to each other...
calls.
Ball described the operational area as containing three sections: Satellite Station Keeping Section, Signals Processing Station and the Signals Analysis Section, from which Australians were barred until 1980. Australians are now officially barred only from the National Cryptographic Room (similarly, Americans are barred from the Australian Cryptographic Room). Each morning the Joint Reconnaissance Schedule Committee meets to determine what the satellites will monitor over the next 24 hours.
With the closing of the Nurrungar
Joint Defense Facility Nurrungar
Joint Defence Facility Nurrungar , located on the edge of Island Lagoon, approximately 15 km south of Woomera, South Australia was a facility operated jointly by the Australian Department of Defence and the United States Air Force from 1969 through 1999...
base in 1999, an area in Pine Gap was set aside for the United States Air Force
United States Air Force
The United States Air Force is the aerial warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the American uniformed services. Initially part of the United States Army, the USAF was formed as a separate branch of the military on September 18, 1947 under the National Security Act of...
's control station for Defense Support Program
Defense Support Program
The Defense Support Program is a program of the U.S. Air Force that operates the reconnaissance satellites which form the principal component of the Satellite Early Warning System currently used by the United States....
satellites that monitor heat emissions from missiles, giving first warning of ballistic missile launches.
Since the end of the Cold War, the station has mainly been employed with intercepting and recording weapons and communications signals from countries in Asia, such as China and North Korea. The station was active in supporting the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq after the September 2001 attacks.
Protests
While much of its operation is secret, Pine Gap is known to be involved in numerous military satelliteMilitary satellite
A military satellite is an artificial satellite used for a military purpose, often for gathering intelligence, as a communications satellite used for military purposes, or as a military weapon.-Description:*Star Wars program...
operations. As a result, it is occasionally targeted for protests, most recently during the war in Afghanistan
War in Afghanistan (2001–present)
The War in Afghanistan began on October 7, 2001, as the armed forces of the United States of America, the United Kingdom, Australia, and the Afghan United Front launched Operation Enduring Freedom...
.
- On 11 November 1983, Aboriginal women led 700 women activists to the Pine Gap gates where they fell silent for 11 minutes to mark Remembrance DayRemembrance DayRemembrance Day is a memorial day observed in Commonwealth countries since the end of World War I to remember the members of their armed forces who have died in the line of duty. This day, or alternative dates, are also recognized as special days for war remembrances in many non-Commonwealth...
and the arrival of Pershing missiles at Greenham Common in Britain. This was the beginning of a two-week, women-only peace camp, organised under the auspices of Women For Survival. While the protest was non-violent, women trespassed onto the military space and on one day 112 were arrested and gave their names as Karen SilkwoodKaren SilkwoodKaren Gay Silkwood was an American labor union activist and chemical technician at the Kerr-McGee plant near Crescent, Oklahoma, United States. Silkwood's job was making plutonium pellets for nuclear reactor fuel rods...
, the American anti-nuclear campaigner. There were allegations of police brutality and a Human Rights Commission Inquiry ensued. - In 1986 the base was issued with an eviction notice to be 'closed by the people' in a Close the Gap campaign; there was a protest by both women and men in which bicycles featured strongly.
- In 2002 about 500 people protested at the gates of Pine Gap, including some politicians. They were objecting to its use in the then impending Iraq war and missile defence, with a massive police presence. A few were arrested after a scuffle with police.
- In December 2005 six members of the Christians Against All Terrorism group staged a protest outside Pine Gap. Four of them subsequently broke into the facility and were arrested. Their trial began on 3 October 2006 and was the first time that Australia's Defence (Special Undertakings) Act 1952 was used. In June 2007 the four were fined $3250 in the Northern Territory Supreme Court with the possibility of a seven year jail term. The Commonwealth prosecutor appealed the decision saying that the sentence was "manifestly inadequate". The Pine Gap four cross-appealed to have their convictions quashed. In February 2008 the four members successfully appealed their convictions and were acquitted. Judges who worked on the case stated that a "miscarriage of justice" had taken place because the four were not allowed to argue before a jury that Pine Gap was not a "defence facility" for Australia.
See also
- GCSB WaihopaiGCSB WaihopaiNew Zealand's Government Communications Security Bureau operates what it describes as a satellite communications monitoring facility in the Waihopai Valley...
- RAF Menwith HillRAF Menwith HillRAF Menwith Hill is a Royal Air Force station near Harrogate, North Yorkshire which provides communications and intelligence support services to the United Kingdom and the United States of America...
- Misawa Air BaseMisawa Air Baseright|thumb|A US Navy C-2 at Misawa is a United States military facility located northeast of the railway station in Misawa, west of the Pacific Ocean, northeast of Towada, northwest of Hachinohe, and north of Tokyo, in Aomori Prefecture, in the Tōhoku region in the northern part of the...
External links
- Pine Gap's wider missile role, The AgeThe AgeThe Age is a daily broadsheet newspaper, which has been published in Melbourne, Australia since 1854. Owned and published by Fairfax Media, The Age primarily serves Victoria, but is also available for purchase in Tasmania, the Australian Capital Territory and border regions of South Australia and...
, 21 September 2007