Deep Space Network antenna

A 70-meter dish of NASA’s Deep Space Network, the ears for every mission beyond the Moon.

Type
Ground station
Status
Operating
First flight
April 1966
Size
70 m (230 ft)
Built by
NASA
3
sites: Goldstone, Madrid and Canberra
70 m
the largest dishes, one at each site

The Deep Space Network has three complexes about 120 degrees apart in longitude — at Goldstone in California, near Madrid and near Canberra — so that every spacecraft beyond the Moon is always in view of at least one. Each has a 70-meter antenna and several 34-meter ones.

The Goldstone 70-meter antenna began as a 64-meter dish in 1966 and was enlarged to 70 meters in 1988 to hear Voyager 2 at Neptune. Today the network talks to Voyager, the Mars rovers, Webb and Orion.

Deep Space Network antenna

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Sources

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