nestled in the remote valleys of
California's Mojave Desert is a complex
of deep space communications antennas
without these graceful giants NASA would
not be able to command and receive
information from satellites or
investigate distant stars and galaxies
the complex called Goldstone has been
NASA's switchboard to the universe for
over three decades actually it is one of
three stations located at equal
distances around the globe linked
together to provide continuous contact
with spacecraft the largest of all
dishes measuring 70 meters across has
been in service for 25 years it's large
ear help scientists collect data from
missions like Magellan currently mapping
the surface of Venus faint signals from
Magellan Travel millions of miles
through space and a receipt by the
antenna signals that are then amplified
processed and transferred to the
spaceflight operations facility at
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory this is
the clearinghouse for all incoming and
outgoing information ultimately millions
of picture elements are assembled from
spacecraft data and transformed into
unprecedented views of the Venusian
surface
not all of gold stones dishes are
pointed at spacecraft as early as 1962
the 26 meter site used radar signals to
detect surface features on the planet
Venus a high-tech antenna was recently
added to test new hardware including
equipment that will someday help search
for life elsewhere in space Goldstone is
one of the country's oldest and most
valuable resources tracking first began
in 1958 with pioneer 3 & 4 which
measured a second radiation belt around
the earth and helped us chart a course
to the moon antennas tracked the ranger
lunar probes and by 1966 surveyor
spacecraft beam back pictures of the
surface
bring me down to a nap Goldstone and
brothers live TV the first milk tracking
continued as early Mariner spacecraft
visited some of our closest planetary
neighbors
in 1977 a pair of voyagers began a
mission that would send back images of
worlds we had never seen before planets
with complex ring systems and their
tortured icy moons Goldstone still
receives faint signals from the voyagers
as they head toward the unknown reaches
of interstellar space
goldstone the premier deep space
communications network
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