Using two 34-meter Deep Space Network dishes provides different capabilities than using one 70-meter dish
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Available technical literature and discussions regarding the Deep Space Network confirm that utilizing two 34-meter antennas provides distinct operational configurations, tradeoffs, and capabilities compared to a single 70-meter dish.
The NASA Deep Space Network (DSN) is a worldwide network of spacecraft communication ground segment facilities, located in the United States (California), Spain (Madrid), and Australia (Canberra), that supports NASA's interplanetary spacecraft missions. It also performs radio and radar astronomy observations for the exploration of the Solar System and the universe, and supports selected Earth-orbi
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The ability to array several antennas was incorporated to improve the data returned from the Voyager 2 Neptune encounter, and extensively used for the Galileo mission, when the spacecraft's high-gain antenna failed to deploy and as a result Galileo was forced to resort to operating solely off its low-gain antennas.
The DSN array currently available since the Galileo mission can link the 70-meter (230 ft) dish antenna at the Deep Space Network complex in Goldstone, California, with an identical antenna located in Australia, in addition to two 34-meter (112 ft) antennas at the Canberra complex. The California and Australia sites were used concurrently to pick up communications with Galileo.
Arraying of antennas within the three DSN locations is also used. For example, a 70-meter (230 ft) dish antenna can be arrayed with a 34-meter dish. For especially vital missions, like Voyager 2, non-DSN facilities normally used for radio astronomy can be added to the array. In particular, the Canberra 70-meter (230 ft) dish can be arrayed with the Parkes Radio Telescope in Australia; and the Goldstone 70-meter dish can be arrayed with the Very Large Array of antennas in New Mexico. Also, two or more 34-meter (112 ft) dishes at one DSN location are commonly arrayed together.
All the stations are remotely operated from a centralized Signal Processing Center at each complex. These Centers house the electronic subsystems that point and control the antennas, receive and process the telemetry data, transmit commands, and generate the spacecraft navigation data. Once the data are processed at the complexes, they are transmitted to JPL for further processing and for distribution to science teams over a modern communications network.
Especially at Mars, there are often many spacecraft within the beam width of an antenna. For operational efficiency, a single antenna can receive signals from multiple spacecraft at the same time. This capability is called Multiple Spacecraft Per Aperture, or MSPA. Currently, the DSN can receive up to 4 spacecraft signals at the same time, or MSPA-4. However, apertures cannot currently be shared for uplink. When two or more high-power carriers are…
ace, featuring a 210-foot-wide (64-meter) dish when it became operational in 1966. The dish was upgraded from 64 meters to 70 meters in 1988 to enable the antenna to track NASA’s Voyager 2 spacecraft as it encountered Neptune.
While officially dubbed Deep Space Station 14, or DSS 14, the antenna picked up the Mars name from its first task: tracking the Mariner 4 spacecraft, which had been lost by smaller antennas after its historic flyby of Mars in 1965.
The Mars antenna has supported missions that include Pioneer, Cassini and the Mars Exploration Rovers. It received Neil Armstrong’s famous communiqué from Apollo 11 : “That’s one small step for [a] man. One giant leap for mankind.” It has also helped with imaging nearby planets, asteroids and comets by bouncing its powerful radar signal off the objects of study.
34-meter Antenna
A 112-foot (34-meter) beam waveguide antenna at the Goldstone Deep Space Communications Complex near Barstow, California.
NASA/JPL-Caltech
The 112-foot (34-meter) antennas come in two types: a high-efficiency antenna and beam waveguide antenna. What makes the beam waveguide version special is the addition of five precision radio frequency mirrors that reflect radio signals along a tube from the antenna to a below-ground room. This design allows sensitive electronics to be in a climate-controlled equipment room instead of outdoors, at the center of the antenna dish. This configuration also simplifies maintenance and modification of the equipment as new technologies are developed.
26-meter Antenna
Deep Space Network, Deep Space Station 42 (DSS-42) was the first antenna build on the Canberra Deep Space Communications Complex tracking station site. The antenna entered service in 1964 and provided two-way radio communications with dozens until deep space missions until its retirement in 2000.
NASA/Canberra Deep Space Communications Complex
Each DSN complex contains one 85-feet (26-meter) diameter antenna that is used
This article describes briefly the pros and cons of using arrays of small antennas instead of large single-dish antennas for spacecraft telemetry, command, and tracking (TT&C), com munications and navigation (C&N), and science support that the Deep Space Network (DSN) normally provides. We consider functionality and performance aspects, mainly for TT&C, though we also consider science. We only briefly comment on the cost aspects that seem to favor arrays of small antennas over large single antennas, at least for receiving (downlinks).
##### I. Introduction
The Deep Space Network (DSN) antennas of the National Aeronautics and Space Adminis tration (NASA), especially the 70-m antennas, which provide most of the collecting area, are getting older and are becoming less reliable than desired. Further, it is difficult for the 70-m antennas to provide reliable operation at 32 GHz (Ka-band), where there is a 500-MHz-wide spectrum allocation compared to only 50 MHz at 8 GHz (X-band). In the future there may be a need for support for more deep-space missions, and also a need for increasing data rates from these missions. This means there may be a need for more sensitivity (A/T, where A is
# Tradeoffs between using two 34 m and one 70 m Deep Space Network dish?
Tags: communication, tracking, deep-space-network, jpl
- Score: 9
- Views: 716
- Answers: 1
- Answered: yes
- Asked by: user12102
- Asked: 2021-05-29
- Edited: 2021-07-18
- Site: space
## Question
Discussion at this answer to Why does DSN sometimes uses two dishes at the same time to receive Voyager-1? include the possibility that in some cases it would be preferable to use two 34 meter DSN dishes instead of one 70 meter dish, and if a 70 meter dish somehow reached end of life it would be replaced by two 34 meter dishes that would also be lower cost to operate.
The primary goal of this question is to address the usage aspects rather than the operation costs or the likelihood that a 70 meter dish would "wear out" any time soon. But one is welcome to touch on those too.
Question: Given three different configurations:
One 70 meter DSN dish
Two co-located 34 meter DSN dishes
Two 34 meter DSN dishes at different sites
what are the tradeoffs between them, and under which circumstances or usage scenarios are each the best or worst option?
Related questions and answers likely helpful to support answers here:
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