The observatory, located 45 km northwest of Riyadh, was commissioned in 1995 and updated in 2001 with the most advanced equipment. The observatory, which is the only one of its kind in the Middle East and Indian Ocean region, has received international accreditation including a ranking that makes it only the second of its kind in the world.

The tasks undertaken by the observatory include tracking the course of satellites with the precision of a millimeter. It also studies the earth’s crust and speed of the planet’s revolution and measures gravitational forces.

Its data is helpful in the study of the solid Earth and other programs requiring precise SLR tracking.