Deep Space Network (DSN)

NASA’s telecommunications network and navigation system, Deep Space Network, celebrated its 60th anniversary on December 24.

Initiative by - Deep Space Network (DSN) is an initiative of NASA started in the year 1963.
Operated by - The DSN is operated by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), which also operates many of the agency’s interplanetary robotic space missions.
Applications - DSN is an array of giant radio antennas that supports interplanetary spacecraft missions, plus a few that orbit Earth.
The DSN also provides radar and radio astronomy observations that improve our understanding of the solar system and the larger universe.
DSN is what makes it possible for NASA to communicate with spacecrafts further away from the moon.

The DSN also supported ISRO during India’s Chandrayaan-3 mission.

Sites - The DSN consists of three facilities spaced equidistant from each other, approximately 120 degrees apart in longitude, around the world.
These sites are at Goldstone, near Barstow, California; near Madrid, Spain; and near Canberra, Australia.

Working - The strategic placement of these sites permits constant communication with spacecraft as our planet rotates.
Before a distant spacecraft sinks below the horizon at one DSN site, another site can pick up the signal and carry on communicating.
Methods - NASA has been enhancing the DSN’s capacity by adding more dish antennas and upgrading the technology to support more spacecrafts and transfer more data from outer space.
One of these new methods is laser or optical communications, which could send more data from longer distances.

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