  The AuScope geodetic Very Long Baseline Interferometry array consists of
three new 12 m radio telescopes and a correlation facility in Australia. The
telescopes at Hobart (Tasmania), Katherine (Northern Territory) and Yarragadee
(Western Australia) are co-located with other space geodetic techniques
including Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) and gravity
infrastructure, and in the case of Yarragadee, Satellite Laser Ranging (SLR)
and Doppler Orbitography and Radiopositioning Integrated by Satellite (DORIS)
facilities. The correlation facility is based in Perth (Western Australia).
  This new facility will make significant contributions to improving the
densification of the International Celestial Reference Frame in the Southern
Hemisphere, and subsequently enhance the International Terrestrial Reference
Frame through the ability to detect and mitigate systematic error. This,
combined with the simultaneous densification of the GNSS network across
Australia will enable the improved measurement of intraplate deformation across
the Australian tectonic plate.
  In this paper we present a description of this new infrastructure and present
some initial results, including telescope performance measurements and
positions of the telescopes in the International Terrestrial Reference Frame.
We show that this array is already capable of achieving centimetre precision
over typical long-baselines and that network and reference source systematic
effects must be further improved to reach the ambitious goals of VLBI2010.
