Summary
NASA has completed Deep Space Station 23, a 34-metre radio antenna at its Goldstone complex in California. The antenna began operational tracking in August and is designed to increase the Deep Space Network’s flexibility and capacity for deep-space missions.
NASA has completed a new 34-metre (114-foot) radio antenna at the Goldstone Deep Space Communications Complex in California, adding another station to the Deep Space Network (DSN). The network uses large dish antennas at facilities in California, Madrid and Canberra to communicate with and navigate more than 40 spacecraft exploring the solar system and interstellar space.
Known as Deep Space Station 23 (DSS-23), the antenna completed a testing campaign between May and July and began operations on Aug. 3 by tracking NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory. NASA says it has since communicated with missions including the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, Psyche, Juno and Voyager 1.
How DSS-23 expands the network
DSS-23 is a multifrequency beam-waveguide antenna. Its dish reflects radio-frequency signals sent to and received from spacecraft, while the antenna directs those signals to electronic equipment in a stable, climate-controlled room below ground. Keeping sensitive electronics off the moving dish makes the system easier to maintain and upgrade, while allowing the antenna to work across multiple radio frequencies.
The new station is the fifth antenna at Goldstone, alongside three other 34-metre antennas and one 70-metre (230-foot) antenna. It is also the fifth antenna delivered through NASA’s Aperture Enhancement Project, which began in 2009 with plans to add six new 34-metre multifrequency beam-waveguide antennas across the three DSN complexes.
NASA describes the project as a way to strengthen communications for missions ranging from lunar exploration to spacecraft operating much farther from Earth. The DSN must schedule communication links with many missions, and additional antennas can give operators more flexibility when several spacecraft need contact or when a large antenna is unavailable.
Building a mission-ready antenna
Construction of DSS-23 began in February 2020. Engineers placed and bolted its 133-ton metal reflector framework onto the antenna pedestal in December 2024, then installed the reflecting panels and calibrated the system to operate with the rest of the network.
The engineering challenge extended beyond the dish itself. NASA says the project had to integrate mechanical, electrical, software, radio-frequency and infrastructure systems into a single operational asset, with each subsystem calibrated and checked for precise and reliable performance.
The Aperture Enhancement Project is scheduled to conclude when Deep Space Station 33 comes online at the Canberra complex in 2029. At that point, the network is expected to have 13 antennas measuring 34 metres across its three facilities. These antennas can be combined and operated together to provide a communications backup equivalent to one 70-metre antenna at each facility.
That capability is increasingly important as the DSN’s single 70-metre antennas, each of which has operated for more than 50 years in near-continuous service, become more costly to maintain and repair. DSS-23 therefore adds immediate tracking capability while contributing to a longer-term modernization of the communications infrastructure used by NASA’s deep-space missions.