Joint Defense Facility Nurrungar Joint Defense Facility Nurrungar Joint Defence Facility Nurrungar (JDFN), located on the edge of Island Lagoon, approximately 15 km south of Woomera, South Australia, was an Earth station in Australia operated jointly by the Australian Department of Defence and the United States Air Force from 1969 through to 1999. Its official area of emphasis was space-based surveillance, in particular the early detection of missile launches and nuclear detonations using U.S. Defense Support Program satellites in geostationary orbits. The name "Nurrungar" derives from an aboriginal term meaning "listen". During the Cold War the site was crucially important to America's defences, being
Troll Satellite Station by the Norwegian Space Centre to establish an earth station at Troll, but the lack of all-year activity stranded the plans. Instead, SvalSat was established to serve as an earth station for NASA's Earth Observing System (EOS). Longyearbyen was selected because of its high latitude, which allows all satellites with an orbit above to use only a single ground station—yet download from every orbit. The Svalbard facility opened on 15 April 1999 and was originally owned by the Norwegian Space Centre. Kongsberg Satellite Services was established in 2002 to jointly operate SvalSat and Tromsø Satellite Station (TSS). In 2003, Norwegian