NASA's worldwide Deep Space Tracking Network (DSN) will be pushed to capacity in 2003-4, according to NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The DSN operates the $300 million, 34m (111ft) diameter dish antennas at Goldstone, California; Canberra, Australia; and Madrid, Spain, to track spacecraft. The network comprises one large antenna and several smaller ones. These sites will probably have to be augmented by European and Japanese systems to cope with demand.
By 2003-4, the system will be required to support 11 US and international interplanetary spacecraft. These include NASA Discovery programme missions Deep Impact and Contour, and the Stardust craft. The 2001 Mars Odyssey orbiter will be in Mars orbit, while two NASA Mars rovers are due to land on the red planet. It will also be supporting the European Space Agency's Mars Express orbiter and its piggyback payload, the UK Beagle 2lander, as well as Japan's Nozomi Mars orbiter. The Saturn-bound orbiter Cassini will be conducting gravity wave experiments while the Space Infrared Telescope Facility will have been launched.
Source: Flight International
