Deep Space Network, Communications network system in Pasadena, US
The Deep Space Network is a network of three facilities with large dish antennas spaced roughly 120 degrees around the planet in California, Madrid, and Canberra. This spacing allows continuous contact with spacecraft as Earth rotates.
NASA established the network in 1963 to maintain contact with missions beyond Earth orbit, starting with early lunar flights and planetary probes. The largest 70-meter antennas were built in the 1960s and later upgraded to keep pace with more distant missions.
This communications system represents international collaboration, bringing together engineers and scientists from multiple countries to advance space exploration goals.
The control rooms are located at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, where engineers coordinate signals from all three sites. The antennas themselves stand in remote desert areas to minimize interference from radio traffic and urban noise.
The antennas can pick up signals weaker than the tick of a digital watch, even when the spacecraft is billions of kilometers away. Each of the three facilities can communicate with multiple spacecraft at the same time using several antennas.
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