A few months ago, we published an article titled, “What Voyager 1, Earth’s farthest spacecraft, saw in its journey of 43 years in space.” And the most common question that people asked was, “How do we get signals from a spacecraft that is billions of miles away?” Well, this article will answer the question.
NASA’s Deep Space Network
When it comes to scientific telecommunications, NASA’s Deep Space Network – or DSN – might top them all in both terms of sensitivity and scale. This array of giant radio antennas situated across the world and operated by NASA’s JPL (Jet Propulsion Laboratory), provides support for spacecraft missions (should they be interplanetary or simply remain in orbit around our planet) as well as are capable of generating radar and radio astronomy observations giving us information about the universe we live in.
The DSN’s three main facilities are situated at an equal distance from each other, respectively, in Goldstone (California), near Madrid (Spain), and near Canberra (Australia). This positioning was chosen for the complexes to be separated by about 120 degrees in longitude, allowing them to be in constant communication with spacecraft even as our planet rotates, for a site will always pick up their signals and maintain communications.
What were the motivations behind this project?
The DSN was not the first of its kind and followed up to its forerunner, a similar portable radio network established in 1958 by the JPL when it was still under a contract of the U.S. Army. The three stations were not situated in Canberra, Madrid, and Goldstone, but Nigeria, Singapore, and California. This structure is indeed what allowed the U.S. Army to launch the first U.S. satellite: Explorer 1, successfully.
When all space-explorations of the Army, Navy, and Airforce were finally joined into one at the inauguration of NASA, the Jet Propulsion Lab and its project were transferred to NASA’s responsibility. They thus developed the existing portable network of radio complexes into the DSN, which aimed to accommodate all deep space missions to remove the need for each spaceflight mission to acquire and develop its space communication network.
What exactly is deep space?
There are several disagreements about the exact boundary of deep space, different operating institutions holding different thresholds for the distance from Earth at which deep space starts. According to NASA’s main body, the DSN was typically constructed to communicate with spacecraft located beyond 16,000 km from the Earth’s surface or to the farther planets of our solar system. However, according to the JPL diagrams, operating and running the DSN, the field defined as “deep space” is beyond 30,000 km, for it is where the spacecraft will always be within the signal range of a DSN complex.
However, this is not all, for the International Telecommunications Union defines “deep space” as starting at 2 million km from Earth’s surface: the distance from which they start using different frequency bands than for Low Earth Orbit (LEO).
More interesting articles:
- The first image from Hubble embarrassed everyone
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The stakes of deep space travel are much different from those in LEO as missions sweep a much lesser angle in the sky per unit time as they are much further and thus require fewer tracking and communication centers (hence the mere three complexes). However, they require much bigger antennas and much more powerful transmitters to reach vast distances, complemented with ultra-sensitive receivers. So although the number of facilities needed is lesser, the technologies required are much more complex.
Functions of the DSN
Within the capabilities and tasks of the DSN are much more than simple antennas communicating with the spacecraft, with several other features such as robust telemetry systems, tracking and commanding, and the necessary tools for thorough scientific investigations.
Through its telemetry functions, the DSN acquires data that the spacecraft collects on its explorations and then processes it and decodes it to correctly distribute it to various research projects. Also, the DSN’s command systems allow it to remotely control the spacecraft’s course and activities while being tracked by the DSN tracking system, determining the exact positions and velocities of spacecraft with the greatest possible precision. Finally, the DSN’s antennas are also used by some spacecraft missions to exchange radio signals with the Earth, revealing information about the objects on the line between the spacecraft and the Earth. Some further uses of the DSN’s signals in science exploration are radio astronomy, radar mapping, and detecting and studying passing asteroids.
To conclude, as some of the DSN’s antennas or components are reaching the end of their lives, numerous challenges lie ahead in replacing or refurbishing them. Besides, new missions will most likely be equipped with the beacon mode service, a data system allowing the spacecraft telecommunication to be independent of the DSN. Thus, like most other technological facilities, the DSN must keep up with each era’s trends and new science to maintain its involvement in newer missions.
Before you go, make sure you also read
- The Moon is Slowly Moving Away From Us! But What’s The Reason & How Will it Affect Our Planet?
- The Dreamer Whose Designs And Experiments Took Humanity To Space.
- These Space Apps Will Help You See All The Exciting Astronomical Events In 2021.
Author at ‘The Secrets Of The Universe’, I am an 18-year-old high school student from Switzerland taking the IB diploma. I always strive to share and spread knowledge should it be through writing, tutoring, or engaging communities with shared interests in my school.
