Australian Defence Satellite Communications Station

The Australian Defence Satellite Communications Station, an Earth station in Australia is located at Kojarena, 30km east of Geraldton, Western Australia. The ADSCS is part of the US signals intelligence and analysis network ECHELON.The station has four satellite tracking dishes which intercept communications from Russian, Chinese, Japanese, Indian and Pakistani regional satellites and international communications satellites, throughout the Indian Ocean and South-East Asian regions. Staff are drawn from the U.S. National Security Agency and the Australian Signals Directorate, and the site is operated under the UKUSA Agreement.In 2007, after signing an agreement 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 19m antennas and two smaller antennas making up a joint US-Australian ground station for the US Department of Defense Mobile User Objective System, a narrow-band networked satellite constellation for Ultra-High-Frequency satellite communications enabling secure all-weather and all-terrain 3-G mobile telecommunications.