[ad_1]
Network upgrades
In January 2021, the DSN welcomed its 13th family dish. Named Deep Space Station 56 (DSS-56), this new 34-meter-wide (112-foot-wide) satellite dish in Madrid is an “all-in-one” antenna. Previously constructed antennas are limited in the frequency bands they can receive and transmit, often limiting them to communicate with specific spacecraft. The DSS-56 was the first to use the full range of DSN communication frequencies as soon as it went online and can communicate with all the missions that DSN supports.
Shortly after the DSS-56 went live, the DSN team performed 11 months of critical upgrades to Deep Space Station 43 (DSS-43), the massive 70-meter (230-foot) antenna at Canberra. DSS-43 is the only satellite dish in the southern hemisphere with a transmitter powerful enough, and broadcasting the right frequency, to send commands to the distant Voyager 2 spacecraft, which is now in interstellar space. With rebuilt transmitters and upgraded plant equipment, the DSS-43 will serve the network for decades to come.
“The refresh of the DSS-43 has been a huge success, and we are about to take care of the next two 70 meter antennas in Goldstone and Madrid. And we have continued to supply new antennas to meet growing demand – throughout COVID-19, ”said Brad Arnold of JPL, director of DSN.
The improvements are part of a project to meet not only the increased demand, but also the changing needs of the mission.
Missions generate more and more data than in the past. The data rate of distant spacecraft has increased more than 10-fold since the first lunar missions in the 1960s. As NASA plans to send humans to Mars, this need for higher data volumes will only increase. to augment.
[ad_2]
Source link