money Space Is Getting Pretty Crowded, So NASA Better Build a New Antenna
NASA began construction on a fancy new radio antenna—part of its Deep Space Network—which will send and receive signals from spacecraft exploring the distant reaches of the solar system.
NASA's network consists of 12 antennas at three locations around the world.
NASA launched the network in 1958. The antennas have sent and received signals from dozens of missions over the years.
NASA broke ground on a radio antenna—what’s soon to be the newest component of the agency’s Deep Space Network—in Goldstone, California on February 11. The Deep Space Network is an array of antennas that communicate with over 30 space missions throughout the solar system and beyond.
The network consists of 12 antennas at three separate locations: Goldstone, California; Madrid, Spain; and Canberra, Australia. NASA chose these locations because they’re each 120 degrees apart from each other, so satellites can, at any point, reach one of the stations.
"The Deep Space Network is Earth's one phone line to our two Voyager spacecraft—both in interstellar space—all our Mars missions, and the New Horizons spacecraft that is now far past Pluto," Jet Propulsion Laboratory Deputy Director Larry James said in a statement. "The more we explore, the more antennas we need to talk to all our missions."
The 112-foot-wide dish will take about two and half years to complete and will be called Deep Space Station-23, or DSS-23. NASA is planning to build an additional five antennas to meet its expanding needs, especially amid the push for a return trip to the moon and an eventual mission to Mars.
Beefing up NASA’s space communication will be critical for future missions farther out in the solar system. It can take anywhere from three to 21 minutes for a single message to reach Earth from Mars and vice versa. DSS-23 will also be equipped with shiny mirrors and a high-tech receiver that will answer the call of signal-transmitting lasers from far off spacecraft.
"Lasers can increase your data rate from Mars by about 10 times what you get from radio," Suzanne Dodd, director of the Interplanetary Network, the organization that manages the Deep Space Network, said in a statement. "Our hope is that providing a platform for optical communications will encourage other space explorers to experiment with lasers on future missions."
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