Deep Space Station 56 Antenna

January 31, 2021

January 25, 2021 - A powerful new antenna has been added to the NASA Space Communications and Navigation’s Deep Space Network (DSN), which connects NASA to the space robots exploring our solar system. Called Deep Space Station 56 (DSS-56) ... the dish communicates with a variety of missions, including NASA’s Perseverance rover when it lands on the Red Planet scheduled for February 18, 2021.

The new 34-meter-wide (112-foot-wide) dish has been under construction at the Madrid Deep Space Communications Complex in Spain since 2017. Existing antennas are limited in the frequency bands they can receive and transmit, often restricting them to communicating only with specific spacecraft.

DSS-56 is the first to use the Deep Space Network’s full range of communication frequencies as soon as it went online. This means DSS-56 is an “all-in-one” antenna that can communicate with all the missions that the DSN supports and can be used as a backup for any of the Madrid complex’s other antennas.

Image created by USA Patriotism! from NASA/JPL-Caltech courtesy photo.