Venera 1, also known as Venera-1VA No.2 and occasionally in the West as Sputnik 8 was the first spacecraft to perform an interplanetary flight and the first to fly past Venus, as part of the Soviet Union's Venera programme. Launched in February 1961, it flew past Venus on 19 May of the same year; however, radio contact with the probe was lost before the flyby, resulting in it returning no data.
Venera 3 was a Venera program space probe that was built and launched by the Soviet Union to explore the surface of Venus. It was launched on 16 November 1965 at 04:19 UTC from Baikonur, Kazakhstan, USSR. The probe comprised an entry probe, designed to enter the Venus atmosphere and parachute to the surface, and a carrier/flyby spacecraft, which carried the entry probe to Venus and also served as a communications relay for the entry probe.
The NASA Deep Space Network (DSN) is a worldwide network of 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).
Venera 15 was a spacecraft sent to Venus by the Soviet Union. This uncrewed orbiter was to map the surface of Venus using high resolution imaging systems. The spacecraft was identical to Venera 16 and based on modifications to the earlier Venera space probes.
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.
Venera 7 was a Soviet spacecraft, part of the Venera series of probes to Venus. When it landed the Venusian surface on 15 December 1970, it became the first spacecraft to soft land on another planet and the first to transmit data from there back to Earth.
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 Medicina Radio Observatory is an astronomical observatory located 30 km from Bologna, Italy. It is operated by the Institute for Radio Astronomy of the National Institute for Astrophysics (INAF) of the government of Italy.
Aleksandr Leonidovich Zaitsev was a Russian and Soviet radio engineer and astronomer from Fryazino. He worked on radar astronomy devices, near-Earth asteroid radar research, and SETI.
The 3MV planetary probe is a designation for a common design used by early Soviet unmanned probes to Mars and Venus. It was an incremental improvement of earlier 2MV probes and was used for Zond 1, Zond 2 and Zond 3 missions to Mars as well as several Venera probes. It was standard practice of the Soviet space program to use standardized components as much as possible. All probes shared the same typical characteristics and differed usually in equipment necessary for specific missions. Each probe also incorporated improvements based on experience with earlier missions.
Indian Deep Space Network (IDSN) is a network of large antennas and communication facilities operated by the Indian Space Research Organisation to support the interplanetary spacecraft missions of India. Its hub is located at Byalalu, Ramanagara in the state of Karnataka in India. It was built under the leadership of S K Shivakumar, the then ISTRAC Director and inaugurated on 17 October 2008 by the former ISRO chairman G. Madhavan Nair.
There are three radio telescopes designated RT-70, all in countries that were once part of the former Soviet Union, all with similar specifications: 70m dishes and an operating range of 5–300 GHz. They are a part of the former Soviet Deep Space Network, now operated by Russia. The Yevpatoria facility has also been used as a radar telescope in observations of space debris and asteroids.
The Yevpatoria RT-70 radio telescope is an RT-70 radio telescope and planetary radar at the Center for Deep Space Communications, Yevpatoria, Crimea. In scientific literature, it is often called the Evpatoria Planetary Radar (EPR).
The Galenki RT-70 radio telescope is an RT-70 telescope at the East Center for Deep Space Communications, Galenki (Ussuriysk), Russia.
The Suffa RT-70 radio telescope is an RT-70 radio telescope at the Suffa Radio Observatory on the Suffa plateau in Uzbekistan.
Pluton is a system of deep space communications and planetary radar in Crimea. It was built in the Deep Space Communication Center area 85th Radiotechnical Center of Distance Communications with Space Objects in the then Yevpatoria Raion in 1960.
The Chinese Deep Space Network (CDSN) is a network of large antennas and communication facilities that are used for radio astronomy, radar observations, and spacecraft missions of China. The CDSN is managed by the China Satellite Launch and Tracking Control Center General (CLTC) of the People's Liberation Army Strategic Support Force Space Systems Department.
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.
A Deep Space Network is a communication network that supports interplanetary spacecraft missions; several instances exist, such as:
The National Space Facilities Control and Test Center is a Ukrainian state institution subordinate to the State Space Agency of Ukraine that manages space flight operations, deep space research using its own technical facilities, space monitoring, geophysical monitoring, and testing of space technology. After the annexation of Crimea, the headquarters of the center moved from Yevpatoria to Kyiv.
