An American defence contractor, Lockheed Martin Australia, is seeking planning approval for a “global navigation satellite system reference station” in Ilparpa Road, near the popular claypans.

The facility is part of a satellite based system pinpointing locations to the accuracy of as little as 10 centimetres, and while it is described as a civilian asset it clearly can have military applications.

Geoscience Australia (GA) says it is working on the Southern Positioning Augmentation Network (SouthPAN) with 23 reference stations, providing telecommunications infrastructure, computing centres, signal generators, and receiving signals from satellites, perform signal measurement and demodulation, and transmit the resulting data to the Corrections Processing Facility in Uralla in New South Wales.

A reader living in the rural residential area has spotted the purple sign and wrote to the Alice Springs News: “We’re only getting two weeks to object to the development (comments closing February 20).

“It’s not good. Lockheed Martin is connected with Pine Gap. I wonder why they won’t just build it elsewhere.”

ChatGPT provides this information: Geoscience Australia and the Australian Government explicitly describe SouthPAN as a civilian system designed to improve positioning accuracy and integrity for civil aviation including emergency services, surveying and construction, transport, rail and mining.

“Although not built as a military system, SouthPAN’s high-precision positioning can clearly support military logistics and vehicle navigation as well as drone navigation.”

This article appeared on Alice Springs News on 8 February 2026.