Topic: Goldstone Deep Space Communicatios Complex

NASA reports Asteroid Apophis to pass safely past Earth for 100-Plus Years

March 30, 2021 |

Pasadena, CA – The near-Earth object was thought to pose a slight risk of impacting Earth in 2068, but now radar observations have ruled that out.

After its discovery in 2004, asteroid 99942 Apophis had been identified as one of the most hazardous asteroids that could impact Earth. But that impact assessment changed as astronomers tracked Apophis and its orbit became better determined.

This image of asteroid Apophis was recorded by radio antennas at the Deep Space Network’s Goldstone complex in California and the Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia. The asteroid was 10.6 million miles (17 million kilometers) away, and each pixel has a resolution of 127 feet (38.75 meters). (NASA/JPL-Caltech and NSF/AUI/GBO)

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NASA’s Opportunity Mars Rover Mission Ends

February 14, 2019 |

NASA Headquarters

Washington, D.C. – One of the most successful and enduring feats of interplanetary exploration, NASA’s Opportunity rover mission is at an end after almost 15 years exploring the surface of Mars and helping lay the groundwork for NASA’s return to the Red Planet.

The Opportunity rover stopped communicating with Earth when a severe Mars-wide dust storm blanketed its location in June 2018. After more than a thousand commands to restore contact, engineers in the Space Flight Operations Facility at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) made their last attempt to revive Opportunity Tuesday, to no avail. The solar-powered rover’s final communication was received June 10th.

The dramatic image of NASA’s Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity’s shadow was taken on sol 180 (July 26, 2004), by the rover’s front hazard-avoidance camera as the rover moved farther into Endurance Crater in the Meridiani Planum region of Mars. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech. was taken on sol 180 (July 26, 2004), by the rover’s front hazard-avoidance camera as the rover moved farther into Endurance Crater in the Meridiani Planum region of Mars. (NASA/JPL-Caltech)

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NASA’s twin Voyager Spacecraft helped improve Communications

August 4, 2017 |

Written by Andrew Good
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Pasadena, CA – As NASA’s twin Voyager spacecraft were changing our understanding of the solar system, they also spurred a leap in spacecraft communications.

The mission’s impact is still visible in California’s Mojave Desert. There, at NASA’s Goldstone Deep Space Communications Complex, the arcs of antenna dishes peek out over craggy hilltops. Goldstone was the first place where the two Voyagers started to change the landscape. The farther they traveled, the bigger these dishes needed to be so they could send and receive radio waves necessary to track and communicate with the probes.

In order to “talk” with the distant Voyager spacecraft, NASA had to leap forward in space communication technology. In the image above, a 64-meter-wide antenna dish in Goldstone, Calif. is expanded to 70 meters. (NASA/JPL-Caltech)

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NASA’s Goldstone Solar System Radar captures images of Asteroid’s flyby of Earth

April 19, 2017 |

Written by DC Agle
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Pasadena, CA – Radar images of asteroid 2014 JO25 were obtained in the early morning hours on Tuesday, with NASA’s 70-meter (230-foot) antenna at the Goldstone Deep Space Communications Complex in California.

The images reveal a peanut-shaped asteroid that rotates about once every five hours. The images have resolutions as fine as 25 feet (7.5 meters) per pixel.

Asteroid 2014 JO25 was discovered in May 2014 by astronomers at the Catalina Sky Survey near Tucson, Arizona — a project of NASA’s Near-Earth Objects Observations Program in collaboration with the University of Arizona.

This composite of 30 images of asteroid 2014 JO25 was generated with radar data collected using NASA’s Goldstone Solar System Radar in California’s Mojave Desert. (NASA/JPL-Caltech/GSSR)

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NASA uses new application of Radar to find missing Spacecraft orbiting the Moon

March 12, 2017 |

Written by DC Agle
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Pasadena, CA – Finding derelict spacecraft and space debris in Earth’s orbit can be a technological challenge. Detecting these objects in orbit around Earth’s moon is even more difficult. Optical telescopes are unable to search for small objects hidden in the bright glare of the moon.

However, a new technological application of interplanetary radar pioneered by scientists at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, has successfully located spacecraft orbiting the moon — one active, and one dormant. This new technique could assist planners of future moon missions.

DSS-14 is NASA’s 70-meter (230-foot) antenna located at the Goldstone Deep Space Communications Complex in California. It is known as the “Mars Antenna” as it was first to receive signals from the first spacecraft to closely observe Mars, Mariner 4, on March 18, 1966. (NASA/JPL-Caltech)

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NASA’s Goldstone Solar System Radar images Asteroid as it passes by Earth

February 12, 2017 |

Written by DC Agle
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Pasadena, CA – Radar images of asteroid 2017 BQ6 were obtained on February 6th and 7th with NASA’s 70-meter (230-foot) antenna at the Goldstone Deep Space Communications Complex in California. They reveal an irregular, angular-appearing asteroid about 660 feet (200 meters) in size that rotates about once every three hours. The images have resolutions as fine as 12 feet (3.75 meters) per pixel.

“The radar images show relatively sharp corners, flat regions, concavities, and small bright spots that may be boulders,” said Lance Benner of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, who leads the agency’s asteroid radar research program.

This composite of 25 images of asteroid 2017 BQ6 was generated with radar data collected using NASA’s Goldstone Solar System Radar in California’s Mojave Desert. (NASA/JPL-Caltech/GSSR)

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