{"id":197600,"date":"2025-04-09T05:35:33","date_gmt":"2025-04-08T19:35:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/?guid=9e2935aba0244d966541bd48c8710cd6"},"modified":"2025-04-09T05:35:33","modified_gmt":"2025-04-08T19:35:33","slug":"sixty-years-in-canberra-nasas-deep-space-network","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/?p=197600","title":{"rendered":"Sixty Years in Canberra: NASA\u2019s Deep Space Network"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"\" class=\"hds-media hds-module wp-block-image\">\n<div class=\"margin-left-auto margin-right-auto nasa-block-align-inline\">\n<div class=\"hds-media-wrapper margin-left-auto margin-right-auto\">\n<figure class=\"hds-media-inner hds-cover-wrapper hds-media-ratio-none \"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nasa.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/pia23682orig.jpg\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" src=\"https:\/\/www.nasa.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/pia23682orig.jpg?w=1920\" class=\"attachment-2048x2048 size-2048x2048\" alt=\"A massive white radio antenna&#039;s dish points up and to the right in this photo. There is grass and many trees all around it. Hilly terrain is in the background, rising up to meet the blue sky.\" style=\"transform: scale(1); transform-origin: 50% 50%; object-position: 50% 50%; object-fit: cover;\" block_context=\"nasa-block\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.nasa.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/pia23682orig.jpg 1920w, https:\/\/www.nasa.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/pia23682orig.jpg?resize=300,200 300w, https:\/\/www.nasa.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/pia23682orig.jpg?resize=768,512 768w, https:\/\/www.nasa.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/pia23682orig.jpg?resize=1024,683 1024w, https:\/\/www.nasa.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/pia23682orig.jpg?resize=1536,1024 1536w, https:\/\/www.nasa.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/pia23682orig.jpg?resize=400,267 400w, https:\/\/www.nasa.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/pia23682orig.jpg?resize=600,400 600w, https:\/\/www.nasa.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/pia23682orig.jpg?resize=900,600 900w, https:\/\/www.nasa.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/pia23682orig.jpg?resize=1200,800 1200w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\" loading=\"eager\" \/><\/a><\/figure><figcaption class=\"hds-caption padding-y-2\">\n<div class=\"hds-credits\">NASA<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>Deep Space Station 43 (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cdscc.nasa.gov\/Pages\/Antennas\/dss43.html\" rel=\"noopener\">DSS-43<\/a>), a 230-foot-wide (70-meter-wide) radio antenna at NASA\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nasa.gov\/communicating-with-missions\/dsn\/\">Deep Space Network<\/a> facility in Canberra, Australia, is seen in this March 4, 2020, image. DSS-43 was more than six times as sensitive as the original antenna at the Canberra complex, so it could communicate with spacecraft at greater distances from Earth. In fact, Canberra is the only complex that can send commands to, and receive data from,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/science.nasa.gov\/mission\/voyager\/\" rel=\"noopener\">Voyager 2<\/a>\u00a0as it heads south almost 13 billion miles (21 billion kilometers) through interstellar space. More than 15 billion miles (24 billion kilometers) away, Voyager 1 sends its data down to the Madrid and Goldstone complexes, but it, too, can only receive commands via Canberra.<\/p>\n<p>As the Canberra facility celebrated its <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nasa.gov\/technology\/space-comms\/deep-space-network\/nasas-deep-space-network-starts-new-dish-marks-60-years-in-australia\/\">60<sup>th<\/sup> anniversary<\/a> on March 19, 2025, work began on a new radio antenna. Canberra\u2019s newest addition, Deep Space Station 33, will be a 112-foot-wide (34-meter-wide) multifrequency <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nasa.gov\/directorates\/space-operations\/space-communications-and-navigation-scan-program\/scan-outreach\/fun-facts\/\">beam-waveguide antenna<\/a>. Buried mostly below ground, a massive concrete pedestal will house cutting-edge electronics and receivers in a climate-controlled room and provide a sturdy base for the reflector dish, which will rotate during operations on a steel platform called an alidade.<\/p>\n<p>When it goes online in 2029, the new Canberra dish will be the last of six parabolic dishes constructed under NASA\u2019s Deep Space Network Aperture Enhancement Program, which is helping to support current and future spacecraft and the increased volume of data they provide. The network\u2019s Madrid facility christened a&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.jpl.nasa.gov\/news\/nasa-adds-giant-new-dish-to-communicate-with-deep-space-missions\/\" rel=\"noopener\">new dish<\/a>&nbsp;in 2022, and the Goldstone, California, facility is putting the&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.jpl.nasa.gov\/news\/nasas-new-deep-space-network-antenna-has-its-crowning-moment\/\" rel=\"noopener\">finishing touches<\/a>&nbsp;on a new antenna.<\/p>\n<p><em>Image credit: NASA<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Deep Space Station 43 (DSS-43), a 230-foot-wide (70-meter-wide) radio antenna at NASA\u2019s Deep Space Network facility in Canberra, Australia, is seen in this March 4, 2020, image. DSS-43 was more than six times as sensitive as the original antenna at the Canberra complex, so it could communicate with spacecraft at greater distances from Earth. In [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":1,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16261],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-197600","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-deep-space-network"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197600","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=197600"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197600\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":198107,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197600\/revisions\/198107"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=197600"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=197600"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=197600"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}