Aerospace Data Facility, East

Aerospace Data Facility, East is one of three Satellite Ground Stations operated by the a National Reconnaissance Office in the Continental United States. ground station. It is responsible for command and control of reconnaissance satellites involved in the collection of intelligence information and onward dissemination to other agencies. ADF East is within US Armys Fort Belvoir establishment in Virginia and co-located with elements of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, being responsible for the operation of the US space based imagery constellation.

Operations
Authors James Bamford and Jeffery Richelson report that the site manages the KH-11 and advanced KH-11 imagery spacecraft and the Lacrosse (satellite) radar imaging spacecraft which operate in polar orbits providing global coverage in near real time.

Y2K
Journalist Richard Lardner reported that an Asynchronous Transfer Mode switch operated by the Defense Information Systems Agency at the Fort Belvoir site experienced stability problems in late 1999, leading to a need to use the fallback methods of dissemination of imagery product, with little effect on operations reported

External references
38.73611°N, -77.15833°W