Sugar Grove Station

Sugar Grove Station is a United States government communications site located near Sugar Grove in Pendleton County, West Virginia operated by the National Security Agency (NSA). According to a 2005 article in the New York Times, the site intercepts all international communications entering the Eastern United States.[1] The activity falls under the Naval Information Operations Command (NAVIOCOM). In April 2013, the Chief of Naval Operations ordered that the site be closed by September 30, 2015, as "a result of the determination by the resource sponsor [National Security Agency] to relocate the command’s mission.”[2][3] As of 2016,part of the base has been transferred to the General Services Administration for sale, while another part of the base, to the south, continues to operate.[4]

The site was first developed by the Naval Research Laboratory in the early 1960s as the site of a 600 ft (180 m) radio telescope[5] that would gather intelligence on Soviet radar and radio signals reflected from the moon and would gather radioastronomical data on outer space, but the project was halted in 1962 before the telescope construction was completed.[6] The site was then developed as a radio receiving station. The site was activated as "Naval Radio Station Sugar Grove" on May 10, 1969, and two Wullenweber AN/FRD-10 Circulary Disposed Antenna Arrays (CDAAs) were completed on November 8, 1969. Numerous other antennas, dishes, domes, and other facilities were constructed in the following years. Some of the more significant radio telescopes on site are a 60 ft (18 m) dish (oldest telescope on site), a 105 ft (32 m) dish featuring a special waveguide receiver and a 150 ft (46 m) dish (largest telescope on site).

The site is part of the ECHELON communications network operated by the United States and its allies to intercept and process electronic telecommunications.[7] The network operates many sites around the world including Waihopai Valley in New Zealand, Menwith Hill in the United Kingdom and Yakima, Washington.

Sugar Grove is located in an officially designated National Radio Quiet Zone that covers 13,000 square miles (34,000 km2) in West Virginia and Virginia. The zone was established by Congress in 1958 to facilitate its mission and that of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory located 30 miles (48 km) away at Green Bank in Pocahontas County, West Virginia.

References

  1. ↑ Bamford, James (December 25, 2005). "The Agency That Could Be Big Brother". New York Times. Retrieved December 23, 2013.
  2. ↑ Coy, David (May 31, 2013). "Senator Manchin Discusses Future Plans for Sugar Grove Naval Base". WHSV.com. Retrieved December 23, 2013.
  3. ↑ "Disestablishment Navy Information Operations Command, Sugar Grove, WV". Chief of Naval Operations. April 2014.
  4. ↑ Charleston Gazette-Mail http://www.wvgazettemail.com/news/20160216/former-navy-base-in-wv-goes-on-the-online-auction-block
  5. ↑ "New Radio Telescope Is Man's Biggest Machine." Popular Science, December 1959, pp. 85-86/250.
  6. ↑ David K. van Keuren, "Cold War Science in Black and White: US Intelligence Gathering and Its Scientific Cover at the Naval Research Laboratory, 1948-62," Social Studies of Science, vol. 31, no. 2, Science in the Cold War, (2001): 207-229.
  7. ↑ "Document 9. NAVSECGRU Instruction C5450.48A, Subj: Mission, Functions and Tasks of Naval Security Group Activity (NAVSECGRUACT) Sugar Grove, West Virginia, September 3, 1991.". George Washington University. 13 January 2000. Retrieved 29 April 2011.

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Further reading

Coordinates: 38°30′54″N 79°17′03″W / 38.514997°N 79.28421°W / 38.514997; -79.28421

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