Pine Gap is a joint Australian–United States satellite communications and
signals intelligence surveillance base and
Australian Earth station approximately south-west of the town of
Alice Springs. It is jointly operated by Australia and the United States, and since 1988 it has been officially called the Joint Defence Facility Pine Gap (JDFPG); previously, it was known as Joint Defence Space Research Facility.
It plays a crucial role in supporting the intelligence activities and military operations of the US around the world.
The base's role has caused much controversy in Australia, leading to various protests.
The station is jointly run by the
Australian Defence Force
The Australian Defence Force (ADF) is the Armed forces, military organisation responsible for the defence of Australia and its national interests. It consists of three branches: the Royal Australian Navy (RAN), Australian Army and the Royal Aus ...
(
Australian Signals Directorate), the US
Central Intelligence Agency
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA; ) is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States tasked with advancing national security through collecting and analyzing intelligence from around the world and ...
(CIA), US
National Security Agency (NSA), and US
National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) and is a key contributor to the NSA's global interception/surveillance effort, which included the
ECHELON program.
The classified NRO name for the Pine Gap base is Australian Mission Ground Station (AMGS), while the unclassified cover term for the NSA function of the facility is RAINFALL.
[Peter Cronau]
The Base: Pine Gap's Role in US Warfighting
, ''Background Briefing'', ABC Radio National, 20 August 2017; Ryan Gallagher and Peter Cronau
The U.S. Spy Hub in the Heart of Australia
, ''The Intercept'', 20 August 2017.
Base

The facilities at the base consist of a massive computer complex with 38
radomes protecting radio dishes
and operates with over 800 employees. Former NSA employee David Rosenberg indicated that the chief of the facility was a senior CIA officer at the time of his service there.
Australian personnel stationed at the installation have access to the entire facility (depending on role and clearance). However, all Australian personnel are banned from entering the
NSA's cryptology room. Similarly, all US Personnel are banned from the
Australian Signals Directorate's cryptology room.
The location is strategically significant because it controls United States spy satellites as they pass over one-third of the globe, including China, North Korea, the Asian parts of Russia, and the Middle East.
Central Australia was chosen because it was too remote for
spy ships passing in international waters to intercept its signals.
The facility has become a key part of the local economy.
Military activities
Pine Gap's activities have become more military-focused over time. One of its roles is to detect and geolocate the source of electronic signals, such as those emitted by
mobile phones. This information is used by
Five Eyes to identify and geolocate targets of interest, which it can then attack using special forces or lethal unmanned drones, for example.
Since it was established, Pine Gap has assisted the US in planning for
nuclear war.
Leaked Department of Defence documents revealed that satellites controlled by the Pine Gap and
Joint Defence Facility Nurrungar facilities were used during the
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War (1 November 1955 – 30 April 1975) was an armed conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia fought between North Vietnam (Democratic Republic of Vietnam) and South Vietnam (Republic of Vietnam) and their allies. North Vietnam w ...
to pinpoint targets for
bombings in Cambodia.
Joint Defence Facility Nurrungar relayed warnings of
Scud missile launches to the
Israel Defence Forces (IDF) during the
Gulf War
, combatant2 =
, commander1 =
, commander2 =
, strength1 = Over 950,000 soldiers3,113 tanks1,800 aircraft2,200 artillery systems
, page = https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GAOREPORTS-PEMD-96- ...
in the early 1990s. By 2003, this function had been fully transferred to Pine Gap.
Location data provided by Pine Gap was used by the US to kill
al-Qaeda
, image = Flag of Jihad.svg
, caption = Jihadist flag, Flag used by various al-Qaeda factions
, founder = Osama bin Laden{{Assassinated, Killing of Osama bin Laden
, leaders = {{Plainlist,
* Osama bin Lad ...
and the
Taliban soldiers with drones. US drones have also killed hundreds of civilians.
During the
Gaza war, it is alleged Pine Gap provided the IDF with communications and electronic intelligence, which it had collected using two
geosynchronous
A geosynchronous orbit (sometimes abbreviated GSO) is an Earth-centered orbit with an orbital period that matches Earth's rotation on its axis, 23 hours, 56 minutes, and 4 seconds (one sidereal day). The synchronization of rotation and orbital ...
Orion satellites located over the Indian Ocean.
Operational history
In late 1966, during the
Cold War
The Cold War was a period of global Geopolitics, geopolitical rivalry between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR) and their respective allies, the capitalist Western Bloc and communist Eastern Bloc, which lasted from 1947 unt ...
, a joint US–Australian treaty called for the creation of a US satellite surveillance base in Australia, to be titled the "Joint Defence Space Research Facility". The purpose of the facility was initially referred to in public as "space research".
It was officially referred to as a "joint space research facility" until 1988.
The Pine Gap treaty was signed on 9 December 1966 and stated that, after an initial nine years, either Australia or the US could cancel the agreement on giving one year's notice.
Operations started in 1970 when about 400 American families moved to
Central Australia
Central Australia, also sometimes referred to as the Red Centre, is an inexactly defined region associated with the geographic centre of Australia. In its narrowest sense it describes a region that is limited to the town of Alice Springs and ...
.
The function of the base when it first opened was to monitor military activities such as missile tests in Russia, China, Pakistan, Japan, Korea, and India..
The base was placed on nuclear alert by the
US Government during the
Yom Kippur War
The Yom Kippur War, also known as the Ramadan War, the October War, the 1973 Arab–Israeli War, or the Fourth Arab–Israeli War, was fought from 6 to 25 October 1973 between Israel and a coalition of Arab world, Arab states led by Egypt and S ...
in 1973 when
US secretary of state Henry Kissinger
Henry Alfred Kissinger (May 27, 1923 – November 29, 2023) was an American diplomat and political scientist who served as the 56th United States secretary of state from 1973 to 1977 and the 7th National Security Advisor (United States), natio ...
issued a
DEFCON 3 force-wide alert. Australian personnel at the base, the
Australian Government
The Australian Government, also known as the Commonwealth Government or simply as the federal government, is the national executive government of Australia, a federal parliamentary constitutional monarchy. The executive consists of the pr ...
and Prime Minister Gough Whitlam were not informed of the alert.
Since the end of the Cold War in 1991 and the rise of the
war on terror in 2001, the base has seen a refocusing from mere nuclear treaty monitoring and missile launch detection, to become a vital warfighting base for US military forces.
In 1999, with the Australian Government refusing to give details to an
Australian Senate
The Senate is the upper house of the Bicameralism, bicameral Parliament of Australia, the lower house being the Australian House of Representatives, House of Representatives.
The powers, role and composition of the Senate are set out in Chap ...
committee about the relevant treaties, intelligence expert Professor
Des Ball from the
Australian National University was called to give an outline of Pine Gap. According to 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 18 in 1999, and 38 by 2017. The number of staff had increased from around 400 in the early 1980s to 600 in the early 1990s and then to 800 in 2017, the biggest expansion since the end of the Cold War.
Ball described the facility as the ground control and processing station for geosynchronous satellites engaged in
signals intelligence collection, outlining four categories of signals collected:
*
telemetry from advanced weapons development, such as
ballistic missiles, used for
arms control verification;
*signals from
anti-missile and
anti-aircraft radars;
*transmissions intended for
communications satellite
A communications satellite is an artificial satellite that relays and amplifies radio telecommunication signals via a Transponder (satellite communications), transponder; it creates a communication channel between a source transmitter and a Rad ...
s; and
*
microwave
Microwave is a form of electromagnetic radiation with wavelengths shorter than other radio waves but longer than infrared waves. Its wavelength ranges from about one meter to one millimeter, corresponding to frequency, frequencies between 300&n ...
emissions, such as long-distance
telephone
A telephone, colloquially referred to as a phone, is a telecommunications device that enables two or more users to conduct a conversation when they are too far apart to be easily heard directly. A telephone converts sound, typically and most ...
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. Each morning the Joint Reconnaissance Schedule Committee meets to determine what the satellites will monitor over the next 24 hours.
With the closing of Nurrungar in 1999, an area in Pine Gap was set aside for the
United States Air Force
The United States Air Force (USAF) is the Air force, air service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is one of the six United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Tracing its ori ...
's control station for
Defense Support Program satellites that monitor heat emissions from missiles, giving first warning of ballistic missile launches. In 2004, the base began operating a new satellite system known as the
Space-Based Infrared System, which is a vital element of US missile defence.
Since the end of the Cold War, the station has mainly been employed to intercept and record weapons and communications signals from countries in Asia, such as China and North Korea. The station was active in supporting the wars in
Yugoslavia
, common_name = Yugoslavia
, life_span = 1918–19921941–1945: World War II in Yugoslavia#Axis invasion and dismemberment of Yugoslavia, Axis occupation
, p1 = Kingdom of SerbiaSerbia
, flag_p ...
,
Afghanistan
Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. It is bordered by Pakistan to the Durand Line, east and south, Iran to the Afghanistan–Iran borde ...
and
Iraq
Iraq, officially the Republic of Iraq, is a country in West Asia. It is bordered by Saudi Arabia to Iraq–Saudi Arabia border, the south, Turkey to Iraq–Turkey border, the north, Iran to Iran–Iraq border, the east, the Persian Gulf and ...
and every US war since the
September 11 attacks.
The
Menwith Hill Station (MHS) in the UK is operated by the NSA and also serves as ground station for these satellite missions.
One of Pine Gap's primary functions is to locate radio signals in the
Eastern Hemisphere, with the collected information fed into the US drone program. This was confirmed by an NSA document from 2013, which says that Pine Gap plays a key role in providing
geolocation data for intelligence purposes, as well as for military operations, including air strikes.
On 11 July 2013, documents revealed through former NSA analyst
Edward Snowden showed that Pine Gap, amongst three other locations in Australia and one in New Zealand, contributed to the NSA's global interception and collection of internet and telephone communications, which involves systems like
XKEYSCORE.
Journalist Brian Toohey states that Pine Gap intercepts electronic communications from Australian citizens including phone calls, emails and faxes as a consequence of the technology it uses.
According to documents published in August 2017, Pine Gap is used as a ground station for spy satellites on two secret missions:
*Mission 7600 with 2 geosynchronous satellites to cover Eurasia and Africa
*Mission 8300 with 4 geosynchronous satellites that covered the former Soviet Union, China, South Asia, East Asia, the Middle East, Eastern Europe, and countries on the Atlantic Ocean
After the inexplicable March 2014 disappearance of
Malaysia Airlines flight MH 370, a
Boeing 777 passenger jet, authorities suggested that Pine Gap or
Jindalee (JORN) radar site might have data to help locate the missing aircraft.
Whitlam dismissal
Gough Whitlam,
Prime Minister of Australia
The prime minister of Australia is the head of government of the Commonwealth of Australia. The prime minister is the chair of the Cabinet of Australia and thus the head of the Australian Government, federal executive government. Under the pr ...
(between 1972 and 1975), considered closing the base.
Victor Marchetti, a former CIA officer who had helped set up the facility, said that this consideration "caused apoplexy in the White House,
nda kind of
Chile ">oupwas set in motion", with the
CIA and
MI6 working together to get rid of the Prime Minister.
On 11 November 1975, the day Whitlam was scheduled to brief the
Australian Parliament on the secret CIA presence in Australia, as well as it being "the last day of action if an election of any kind was to be held before Christmas", he was dismissed from office as he was unable to guarantee supply (money required for the functions of the government) by the
Governor-General John Kerr, using reserve powers, described as "archaic" by critics of the decision.
In 2020, previously confidential private correspondences between the Palace and the Governor-General were released. In one of the letters, John Kerr describes his alleged CIA connections as "Nonsense of course", and assured the Queen of his continued loyalty. Nonetheless, according to revelations from CIA whistleblower
Christopher John Boyce, Kerr allegedly maintained ties with CIA-funded organizations and was referred to as 'our man Kerr' by the agency.
Allegations of Christopher Boyce
During his trial for espionage, US defence industry employee
Christopher Boyce made a number of allegations related to the intelligence gathered at Pine Gap (including claiming that
the CIA was involved in the Whitlam Dismissal). He stated that, despite the US agreeing to share intelligence from Pine Gap with Australia, he was told that the US did and would withhold some information from the Australians. Boyce also said that Pine Gap was monitoring telephone calls and
telex
Telex is a telecommunication
Telecommunication, often used in its plural form or abbreviated as telecom, is the transmission of information over a distance using electronic means, typically through cables, radio waves, or other communica ...
messages to and from Australia of a political nature.
Protests

*On 11 November 1983, Aboriginal women led 700 women to the Pine Gap gates where they fell silent for 11 minutes to commemorate
Remembrance Day and the
Greenham Common protest in Britain. This was the beginning of a two-week, women-only peace camp, organised under the auspices of "Women For Survival". The gathering was nonviolent but several women trespassed onto the military base. 111 women were arrested on one particular day and gave their names as
Karen Silkwood, an American nuclear worker who died after campaigning for nuclear safety. There were allegations of
police brutality and an
Australian Human Rights Commission inquiry ensued.
*On 5–7 October 2002, a number of groups (including
Quakers
Quakers are people who belong to the Religious Society of Friends, a historically Protestantism, Protestant Christian set of Christian denomination, denominations. Members refer to each other as Friends after in the Bible, and originally ...
and the
National Union of Students) gathered at the gates of Pine Gap to protest the use of the base in the then-impending Iraq war.
*In December 2005, six members of the
Christians Against All Terrorism group staged a protest outside Pine Gap. Four of them later broke into the facility and were arrested. Their trial began on 3 October 2006 and was the first time that Australia's Defense (Special Undertakings) Act 1952 was used. The Pine Gap Four
cross-appealed to have their convictions quashed. In February 2008, the four members successfully appealed their convictions and were acquitted.
*On 28 September 2016, a group of five people calling themselves “Peace Pilgrims” entered the prohibited zone around Pine Gap and were arrested and tried for trespass.
*On 20 October 2023, pro-Palestinian demonstrators blocked Hatt Road, the entryway to Pine Gap, calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. Protesters blockaded Hatt Road, the main access road to Pine Gap in late November 2023 due to concerns that information collected at the facility was being passed to the IDF and being used to identify targets within Gaza during the 2023 Israel-Hamas War.
In popular culture
Peter "Turbo" Teatoff is seen delivering heavy machinery to JDFPG in season 4's 11th episode of series ''
Outback Truckers''.
Pine Gap features prominently in the third and fourth
thriller novels of the ''Jack West Jr.'' series—''
The Five Greatest Warriors'' and ''
The Four Legendary Kingdoms'', respectively—by the Australian writer
Matthew Reilly.
Pine Gap is featured in the 2018 Australian television series
of the same name. The series is a
political thriller, portraying the lives of the members of the joint American–Australian intelligence team.
In the novel, ''
The Secret History of Twin Peaks'' by
Mark Frost, President
Richard Nixon
Richard Milhous Nixon (January 9, 1913April 22, 1994) was the 37th president of the United States, serving from 1969 until Resignation of Richard Nixon, his resignation in 1974. A member of the Republican Party (United States), Republican ...
claims that Pine Gap is actually the site of an underground facility constructed by
extraterrestrials.
In 1982 the Australian band Midnight Oil released "
Power and the Passion", which contains a reference to Pine Gap.
On 6 March 2024, Australian YouTubers
Aleksa Vulović,
Alex Apollonov and
Jordan Shanks uploaded a video to Vulović's channel Boy Boy, in which the trio attempted to enter Pine Gap. The trio were briefly detained and questioned after being denied entry at the front gate. The trio also kicked a soccer ball over the security fence and then asked to retrieve it as a prank. The next day, upon arrival at
Sydney Airport, the trio were further questioned by the
Australian Federal Police immediately after leaving the aircraft. The video featured an interview with Donna Mulhearn, one of the six members of the Christians Against All Terrorism group who
attempted to sneak into Pine Gap in 2006, along with the discussion of the alleged CIA involvement in the Whitlam dismissal.
See also
*
Five Eyes alliance
*
Joint Geological and Geophysical Research Station
*
GCSB Waihopai
*
RAF Menwith Hill
*
Misawa Air Base
References
*
*
*
Citations
Sources
; General sources
*1999
Joint Standing Committee on TreatiesAn Agreement to extend the period of operation of the Joint Defence Facility at Pine Gap. Report 26. Parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia, October 1999.
*2002 Craig Skehan
. ''
Sydney Morning Herald
''The Sydney Morning Herald'' (''SMH'') is a daily tabloid newspaper published in Sydney, Australia, and owned by Nine Entertainment. Founded in 1831 as the ''Sydney Herald'', the ''Herald'' is the oldest continuously published newspaper in ...
'', 30 September 2002.
*2003
Australian Broadcasting Corporation
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) is Australia’s principal public service broadcaster. It is funded primarily by grants from the federal government and is administered by a government-appointed board of directors. The ABC is ...
Pine Gap. Retranscription of program broadcast on 4 August 2003.
*200
Pine Gap 6*200
The Australian, 29 May.
*200
"Aussies eye BMD role"United Press International, 11 Jun
*200
ABC, Australia, 5 Jun
*200
External links
''
The Age
''The Age'' is a daily newspaper in Melbourne, Australia, that has been published since 1854. Owned and published by Nine Entertainment, ''The Age'' primarily serves Victoria (Australia), Victoria, but copies also sell in Tasmania, the Austral ...
'', 21 September 2007
Pine Gap protests–historicalat
Nautilus Institute, April 2008
Management of Operations at Pine Gap Desmond Ball, Bill Robinson and Richard Tanter,
Nautilus Institute, 24 November 2015
The Base: Pine Gap's Role in US Warfighting ''Background Briefing'', ABC Radio National, 20 August 2017
NSA Documents on Pine Gap from archive of Edward Snowden, ''Background Briefing'', ABC Radio National, 20 August 2017
The U.S. Spy Hub in the Heart of Australia ''The Intercept'', 20 August 2017
{{Authority control
UKUSA listening stations
Protests in Australia
Buildings and structures in Alice Springs
Earth stations in the Northern Territory
Australia–United States military relations
Military installations of the United States in Australia
1970 establishments in Australia
Australian intelligence agencies
Australian Defence Force
Military installations in the Northern Territory
MacDonnell Region