ESA's 35-meter deep space antennas at new Norcia/Western Australia and Cebreros/Spain

Abstract

This paper describes the technical characteristics of ESA's deep space antenna (DSA) installed in New Norcia/Western Australia, its second DSA under contract to be erected in Cebreros/Spain and the overall scenario with a third DSA, establishing a European deep space network (EDSN). The need to built an ESA deep space antenna in support of deep space and high elliptical-orbit missions, was triggered in 1997 by the ESA mission model, which could not be supported by the ESA 15 m network, nor by spare capacity from NASA/DSN or other Space Agencies, also in view of the worldwide flotilla of missions to Mars planned in the 2003 to 2011 timeframe. Taking into account both existing and planned facilities, it was determined in 2001, that a second DSA is required to complement the first DSA. The need of a third DSA, to establish an EDSN as scoped by the network of centres initiative is currently under investigation. The first 35 meter parabolic reflector antenna includes a full motion turning head pedestal with a beam wave guide (BWG) feed system, cryogenically cooled S- and X-band low noise amplifiers (LNAs), 20 kW S- and X-band transmitters and all other supporting equipment of the front-end. The second antenna is copied in many areas, however, it has only X- and Ka-band frequencies. These antennas are amongst the largest in the world used for TT&C applications and represent the jewel in the crown of the European Space Operations Centre (ESOC) ground station network.