Woomera, South Australia residents in the mid-1960s. However, with the establishment of the USAF/ADF Joint Defence Communications Facility in 1969 at the nearby Nurrungar site, approximately south of Woomera, along with its 1100 permanent staff, the village population stabilized at around 4,500 people (including around 800 children). In the late 1990s, as the Nurrungar program was winding down, the ADF reassessed the role of Woomera in its future force structure. What became apparent to the ADF at that time was that the Woomera Test Range was the only land-based test range left in the Western world capable of testing the next (or what
Baxter Immigration Reception and Processing Centre Baxter Immigration Reception and Processing Centre Baxter Immigration Reception and Processing Centre or commonly just Baxter Detention Centre, was an Australian immigration detention facility near the town of Port Augusta in South Australia. It was the focus of much of the controversy concerning the mandatory detention of asylum seekers in Australia. Named after the nearby Baxter Range, a geographical feature which in turn was named after John Baxter (explorer), it was located on a portion of the Australian Defence Force's El Alamein Army Reserve that was nearest to Port Augusta. Following establishment expenditure of $44 million, it became operational in