The NASA Deep Space Network (DSN) is a worldwide network of American 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-orbiting missions. DSN is part of the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).
The Dish is a 2000 Australian historical comedy-drama film that tells the story of the Parkes Observatory's role in relaying live television of humanity's first steps on the Moon during the Apollo 11 mission in 1969. It was the top-grossing Australian film in 2000.
The Goldstone Deep Space Communications Complex (GDSCC), commonly called the Goldstone Observatory, is a satellite ground station located in Fort Irwin in the U.S. state of California. Operated by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), its main purpose is to track and communicate with interplanetary space missions. It is named after Goldstone, California, a nearby gold-mining ghost town.
Parkes Observatory is a radio astronomy observatory, located 20 kilometres (12 mi) north of the town of Parkes, New South Wales, Australia. It hosts Murriyang, the 64 m CSIRO Parkes Radio Telescope also known as "The Dish", along with two smaller radio telescopes. The 64 m dish was one of several radio antennae used to receive live television images of the Apollo 11 Moon landing. Its scientific contributions over the decades led the ABC to describe it as "the most successful scientific instrument ever built in Australia" after 50 years of operation.
Sky Trackers is a 26-part science-based Australian children's television adventure series, and a stand-alone children's television movie of the same name, which feature the adventures of children who live at space-tracking stations in Australia. Both series and telemovie were created by Jeff Peck and Tony Morphett, and executive-produced by Patricia Edgar on behalf of the Australian Children's Television Foundation (ACTF).
Honeysuckle Creek Tracking Station was a NASA Earth station in Australia near Canberra, and was instrumental to the Apollo Program. The station was opened in 1967 and closed in 1981.
The Madrid Deep Space Communications Complex (MDSCC), in Spanish and officially Complejo de Comunicaciones de Espacio Profundo de Madrid, is a satellite ground station located in Robledo de Chavela, Spain, and operated by the Instituto Nacional de Técnica Aeroespacial (INTA). Part of the Deep Space Network (DSN) of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), along with its two sister stations at Goldstone, California and Canberra, Australia it is used for tracking and communicating with NASA's spacecraft, particularly interplanetary missions. The DSN and the Near Space Network (NSN) are services of the NASA Space Communications and Navigation program (SCaN).
The Orroral Valley tracking station was an Earth station in Australia, supported Earth-orbiting satellites, as part of NASA's Spacecraft Tracking and Data Acquisition Network (STADAN). It was located approximately 50 km south of Canberra, Australian Capital Territory (ACT), and was one of three tracking stations in the ACT, and seven in Australia.
The Island Lagoon Tracking Station, an Earth station in Australia, was the first deep space station to be established outside of the United States, near Woomera, South Australia in November 1960.
The Carnarvon Tracking Station was an Earth tracking station in Australia, located 10 kilometres south of Carnarvon, Western Australia. It operated from 1963 until 1975, during which it supported the Gemini, Apollo and Skylab space programs.
The Apollo 11 missing tapes were those that were recorded from Apollo 11's slow-scan television (SSTV) telecast in its raw format on telemetry data tape at the time of the first Moon landing in 1969 and subsequently lost.
Third-party evidence for Apollo Moon landings is evidence, or analysis of evidence, about the Moon landings that does not come from either NASA or the U.S. government, or the Apollo Moon landing hoax theorists. This evidence provides independent confirmation of NASA's account of the six Apollo program Moon missions flown between 1969 and 1972.
The OTC Satellite Earth Station Carnarvon, an Earth station in Australia, was established to meet the need for more reliable and higher quality communications for the Apollo program. NASA contracted Australia's Overseas Telecommunications Commission (OTC) "to provide an earth station near Carnarvon, Western Australia to link the NASA tracking station in that area to the control centre in the USA", also contracting COMSAT to launch three Intelsat-2 communications satellites.
The Manned Space Flight Network was a set of tracking stations built to support the American Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, and Skylab space programs.
There are NASA facilities across the United States and around the world. NASA Headquarters in Washington, DC provides overall guidance and political leadership to the agency. There are 10 NASA field centers, which provide leadership for and execution of NASA's work. All other facilities fall under the leadership of at least one of these field centers. Some facilities serve more than one application for historic or administrative reasons. NASA has used or supported various observatories and telescopes, and an example of this is the NASA Infrared Telescope Facility. In 2013 a NASA Office of the Inspector General's (OIG) Report recommended a Base Realignment and Closure Commission (BRAC) style organization to consolidate NASA's little used facilities. The OIG determined at least 33 of NASA's 155 facilities were underutilized.
The forerunner of the Deep Space Network was established in January 1958, when JPL, then under contract to the U.S. Army, deployed portable radio tracking stations in Nigeria, Singapore, and California to receive telemetry and plot the orbit of the Army-launched Explorer 1, the first successful U.S. satellite.
Thomas Reid MBE was the director of the Honeysuckle Creek Tracking Station outside Canberra, Australia, which in July 1969 transmitted live television of Neil Armstrong stepping onto the Moon to a world-wide audience of 600 million people.
The Deakin Telephone Exchange is an exchange established in 1965, the bottom floor of which was used in the NASA Communications Network (NASCOM) until 1988, when the Canberra Deep Space Communication Complex took over its role.
Miriam Baltuck is an Australian American geologist. She was a program manager of the Solid Earth and Natural Hazards program at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), Washington, DC. She later moved to Australia where she became director of the Canberra Deep Space Communications Complex (CDSCC), part of the Deep Space Network of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), located at Tidbinbilla in the Australian Capital Territory.
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