Inside Pine Gap: The Spy Who Came in from the Desert

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Pine Gap is one of the largest, most important and most secret US intelligence collection stations in the world. Specifically, it is a ground control and data processing station for a small number of geostationary signals intelligence (SIGINT) satellites, which collect a wide range of foreign signals, including telemetry associated with tests of advanced weapons systems, radar emissions, other forms of electronic intelligence (ELINT) and microwave telecommunications (providing communications intelligence, or COMINT). The first generation of these satellites was codenamed Rhyolite; its successors have been called Aquacade, Magnum, Orion, Advanced Orion, and Mentor.

The station officially became operational on 19 June 1970, when the first Rhyolite satellite was launched, and operates under an agreement between Washington and Canberra signed on 9 December 1966. It was initially managed by the Office of SIGINT Operations (OSO) of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), under the direction of a super-secret intelligence satellite coordinating agency called the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO). The NRO’s executive role at Pine Gap was officially declassified on 15 October 2008. The ELINT analysts at the station were provided by the National Security Agency (NSA).

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