MEDIA RELATIONS OFFICE
JET PROPULSION LABORATORY
CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION
PASADENA, CALIFORNIA 91109. TELEPHONE (818) 354-5011
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov
 Preparing
for the communication needs of an expected population boom in
interplanetary spacecraft, NASA has selected a builder to add
an advanced dish antenna, 34 meters in diameter (112 feet), near
Madrid, Spain, one of the three sites of the agency's Deep Space
Network.
The Deep
Space Network is a global system for communicating with interplanetary
spacecraft.
"We
are getting ready for a crunch period beginning in November 2003,"
said Rich Miller, head of planning and commitments for the part
of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., that
manages the network. In late 2003 and early 2004, the United States,
Europe and Japan will each have missions arriving at Mars, two
other spacecraft will be encountering comets, and a third comet
mission will launch. Several other missions will have continuing
communication needs.
NASA has
selected Schwartz-Hautmont Construcciones Metalicas S.A. of Tarragona,
Spain, as the successful bidder to build a new antenna to be completed
at the Madrid complex by November 2003. The antenna is the biggest
piece in about $54 million worth of improvements that NASA's Office
of Space Science, Office of Space Flight, and Space Operations
Management Office have set as priorities for increasing the Deep
Space Network's capabilities by late 2003. Other parts of the
plan would improve the capabilities of existing antennas at all
three of the network's tracking complexes: Madrid; Canberra, Australia;
and Goldstone, near Barstow, Calif.
The Deep
Space Network communicates with spacecraft that are anywhere from
near Earth to out past Pluto. The network uses clusters of antennas
at the three sites spaced approximately one-third of the way around
the Earth from each other so they can cover spacecraft in any
direction as the world turns. Each station has one 70-meter diameter
(230-foot) antenna, plus several smaller ones.
Projections
for demands on the network during the November 2003 to February
2004 period indicate the greatest need for increased communications
capacity will be at Madrid. NASA plans to land two rovers on Mars
in early 2004. Building a new 34-meter, antenna in Madrid would
add about 70 hours of spacecraft-tracking time per week during
the periods when Mars is in view of Madrid. The Madrid complex's
current capacity is 210 hours within Mars view periods per week.
Additional
information about the Deep Space Network is available online at
http://deepspace.jpl.nasa.gov/dsn
. JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in
Pasadena, manages the network for NASA.
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