Why NASA's Deep Space Network Is The Most Important Part Of Any Space Probe

The Deep Space Network is operated by JPL at 3 different sites around the world offering continuous support for spacecraft in deep space. The network goes back to the late 1950's and has expanded and adapted over that time to offer capabilities 10 trillion times superior to what the earliest spacecraft used.

But more than that the DSN delivers essential navigation and science support, making it a hugely important contributer to any mission to the planets.

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[EndersxS]

I just recently started working on my senior capstone design project for my aerospace engineering degree and am having to read up on the requirements and procedures for utilizing the DSN.

BTW Scott Manley, your videos played a major role in me attaining this degree. 10-11 years ago I was a 20 year old automotive mechanic, I had a pretty sweet gig working for a company that trained race car drivers, so I spent my days building and maintaining race cars, worked on a couple of race teams as well. I had bought into the original KSP project back in the early early alpha days and my little laptop couldn't run it. But I had recently bought a new one and wanted to get into it and stumbled across your videos, your tutorials got me my first Mun landing and I was hooked. It was your Interstellar series that really got me going though. Your mix of educational exposition on the science and engineering concepts behind a lot of the gameplay in KSP sparked a passion and obsession with rocketry and physics that I didn't know I had. I soon found my self watching videos on theoretical physics and engineering concepts that were way over my head but fascinating nonetheless. Finally roughly 6 years ago I made the decision to quit my job as a mechanic and go back to school. I worked part time and took classes at the local community college for a couple of years. Then with the full support of my absolutely incredible family I made the transition into a full time aerospace engineering program at a large university. I'm now 32 and will be graduating in May with my aerospace engineering degree with plans to attend grad school afterwards. My dream is to one day work on next generation high-energy electro dynamic propulsion systems for powering interplanetary tugs. I may be a bit behind my peers in age but it's never to late to start learning new things. So thank you, without your content I don't know if I ever would have started this journey.

Anyways, radio communication is some seriously like black voodoo magic stuff, the fact we are able to reliably transmit and receive data in environments with just miniscule signal to noise ratios using nothing but some linear algebra "trickery" is incredible.

[TheBunzinator]

As far as the Canberra site goes, it was originally at Honeysuckle Creek, which is the station that received "one small step for a man". (Despite what the movie "The Dish" may tell you.) It was decommissioned in 1981, being replaced by CDSCC at Tidbinbilla, down the hill from Honeysuckle, and somewhat closer to Canberra.

[markskjerve]

Your video brings back many memories. By dad worked at Goldstone (and had a office at JPL as well) for over 30 years and ended up head of R&D for the DSN at Goldstone and was one of the founding fathers of VLBI until his death in 2011. Still remember when I was a kid spending a nights helping load, unload and labeling reel to reel computer tapes for experiments at Goldstone and Owens Valley telescopes and the Project Aries portable (kinda portable anyway, took 3 trucks to haul it) radio telescope during the early days of VLBI. Each tape held maybe 10 minutes of data and had 3 machines running. It seemed like we went through 100's of tapes a night but can't remember, I was 10 year old slave labor ;)

It's amazing how the technology has changed over the years of the DSN. I moved out of state but when out in Cali visiting I always had to go to his office for a day to satisfy the geek in me and saw the progression of the DSN over the time of 25 years I can remember. Our 1976 Honda Civic had the vanity plate "VLBI".

[DeathValleyDazed]

Appreciate this excellent summary. Hats off to all the engineers over the decades for their hard work.

[DataSmithy]

I discovered the DSN website a few years ago, and was really blown away by all of the legacy and modern spacecraft that they communicate with.

[acamilop]

I went to visit the facility in Madrid. It is cool because it is in the middle of a cow pasture. They have a little visitor center and gift shop. I was shocked how many of my Spanish coworkers hadn't even heard of the facility. Great video.

[nerva-]

A week or two ago I actually rewatched the PBS Nova episode "To Boldly Go..." summarizing the Voyager missions, and it talked about how after Voyager 2's high-gain antenna died, they kept improving the DSN, enlarging the dishes and integrating dishes around the world into a single radio antenna array, during the years between planetary visits that were further and further from Earth. They also repurposed Voyager 2's third (spare) computer to perform image-compression computations, or else they wouldn't have been able to send back as many pictures as they did because of the dwindling bandwidth available.

[kaitlyn__L]

That hybrid radio-optical dish plan was one of the few things new to me, but gosh that’s an exciting development!

[dcmayo]

I work at a place that just became the first DSN node outside of the three major complexes! The Space Science Center in Morehead, Kentucky, USA is now operating DSS-17 (a 21 meter X-band and S-band dish) as of a few months ago. I don't know why we don't show up on that NASA website.

I got to move the dish one time, which was super fun.

[fratercontenduntocculta]

I was fortunate enough to be stationed at Ft. Irwin in southern Cali. Just inside it's main entrance is the Goldstone Deep Space Complex and it's antenna dishes are scattered throughout the base. Because it's so far into the desert, at night you can clearly see both the Milky Way and easily spot the many lower satellites orbiting. That's where I bought my first Telescope and have been into Astronomy ever since. Thanks Scott!

[NuggetNapper]

JPLers call the control center for the DSN the center of the universe because basically most (deep space) spacecraft route all their communications through that room. If you ever get the opportunity to visit JPL and go the the SFOF viewing gallery, there is a JPL plaque in the floor of the darkroom (next to the Curiosity ACE console) and underneath it reads "The Center of the Universe 'dare mighty things'"
If your escort can arrange a hosted tour by Jim McClure I'd highly recommend it too! He explains the reference better than I ever could. You also get to go into the Multi-Mission Support Area which is super awesome. (And you get to have some peanuts)

[yumazster]

Wow, the dish construction time lapse was amazing!

[Heartofichor]

Hey Scott, would love to see a video explaining more about how data is transmitted through space, compression, error correction, etc. Kinda similar to your recent video about air traffic telemetry. Really fascinating stuff!

[jasonreilly]

You're absolutely correct about the original DSN facility in Australia near Woomera, it was located nearby at Island Lagoon, called DSS41, and is definitely no longer in operation - completely dismantled. I travelled there a few years ago and all I could find was the foundations of the collimator tower, and a few curious red kangaroos quietly keeping an eye on us. In our travels this year, we wanted to visit it's modern counterpart at Tidbinbilla near Canberra, but the facility was closed due to COVID staffing restrictions, which was a shame. Instead we went north to CSIRO's Parkes radio astronomy facility, and that was pretty interesting, suitably satisfying my tech-geek appetite. Fantastic videos, choc full of good info... keep 'em coming!

[mdzmura]

Just, Wow!! Love your work, Scott, but your light storytelling about the history of the storied NASA DSN is just incredible and makes this one of your best efforts ever!! Will be referring this video to science kids forever!! You have to get together with NatGeo, Smithsonian, or somebody like that to narrate a long-form documentary about this incredible subject!! We need you to become the David Attenborough of Astronomy and Space Science!!

[Veptis]

The engineers working on the stations locally are quite active on Twitter, which is such a nice insight if you are interested in s specific topic.

I have also seen them work together with amateur radio observers to get some neat signals decoded

[goldengep]

Got to visit the Goldstone site when I was a JPL intern in 2015. Had to be one of the more eye-opening experiences of my life

[solandri]

Mars Climate Observer's loss is commonly touted as a metric/Imperial units screwup, but it's really not. What actually happened was that the contractor provided the requisite thrust numbers without units. And the people at NASA entering the thrust numbers did it without first calling to confirm what the units were. They both assumed the other party was using the same units as them. If the numbers the contractor provided had been in kilonewtons, and the people entering them assumed they were newtons, the spacecraft would have been lost just the same even though all the units were metric.

Important lesson for all you aspiring engineers and scientists: Except for dimensionless numbers, a number without a unit is as useless as no number. This was drilled into me in college - if I handed in a homework assignment or exam with the correct numbers but no units, I got zero credit.

[rpavlik]

Pretty cool video, nice to see it's not in "relic mode" like it feels like so much of the space program can be some times. I had forgotten about the DSN Now site: just went and looked, and it's talking to Voyager 1, DART, Osiris REX, JWST (a slow uplink, a slow downlink, and a fast downlink), and the Korean lunar probe, among others, at this particular moment.

[senseifreak]

It's nice to know SANSA (South African National Space Agency) and NASA starting a new deep space project in 2024. Looked up what the old project looked liked and came across it.