Malargüe Station
Malargüe Station is a 35-metre ESTRACK radio antenna under construction in Argentina.[1] It is being built for the European Space Agency (ESA) for communication with spacecraft in deep space. It is located 40 kilometres (25 mi) south of the town of Malargüe, Argentina. The Malargüe antenna has two sister stations, Cebreros Station, near Madrid, Spain, and New Norcia Station near New Norcia, Australia. The completion of this station will allow deep space missions to be tracked continuously.
On 7 December 2011, the station's 35 m-diameter dish antenna was hoisted into place. The operation took several hours and had to wait for a calm day with no wind.[2] The station is (November 2012) undergoing tests and ESA expects the station to be fully operational in 2013.[3]
References
- ^ "Malargüe - DSA 3". ESA. Retrieved 2 Jun 2011.
- ^ "Lifting of giant deep space antenna complete". ESA. Retrieved 8 Jan 2012.
- ^ Jenny Winder (November 5, 2012). "Huge new ESA tracking station is ready for duty". Phys.org.
External links
- ESA webpage on ESTRACK, including links to all stations
- ESA webcam following construction at Malargüe Station
35°46′34″S 69°23′54″W / 35.776°S 69.3982°W
 | This space- or spaceflight-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |