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How do you call
long-distance across 10 billion miles?
Learn how NASA locates,
receives data from,
and controls dozens of
spacecraft in deep space.
Gene Burke, Retired JPL Program Manager
Click here for Broadcast |
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Gene Burke worked in
aerospace at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL)/California
Institute of Technology for almost 50 years before retiring this
year. Besides JPL, he has worked in several NASA locations, including
the Goldstone Deep Space Communications Complex outside of Barstow,
California, and the Spacecraft Compatibility Station at Cape
Canaveral, Florida. As a Program Manager he worked with many flight
projects, and the Deep Space Network which tracks and returns the
data from these spacecrafts.
Gene holds a BSEE and an MS
in Program Management from West Coast University, Los Angeles, California. |
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The largest antennas in NASA's Deep
Space Network (DSN).
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To learn more about NASA's Deep
Space Network (DSN), go to JPL's
website. |
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The NASA Deep Space
Network - or DSN - is an international network of antennas that
supports interplanetary spacecraft missions and radio and radar
astronomy observations for the exploration of the solar system and
the universe. The network also supports selected Earth-orbiting missions.
The DSN currently
consists of three deep-space communications facilities placed
approximately 120 degrees apart around the world: at Goldstone, in
California's Mojave Desert; near Madrid, Spain; and near Canberra,
Australia. This strategic placement permits constant observation of
spacecraft as the Earth rotates, and helps to make the DSN the
largest and most sensitive scientific telecommunications system in
the world. |
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The Deep Space Network radio
telescope dish, shown for scale in the Rose Bowl.
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34m Beam Waveguide (BWG) antennas
clustered at Goldstone,
Each has five precision radio
frequency mirrors that reflect radio signals along a beam-waveguide
tube from the vertex of the antenna to the below-ground pedestal
equipment room.
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