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Loading contentThe ground dishes and spacecraft antennas that carry deep-space signals, from 70 m giants to laser terminals.
The largest and most sensitive dishes of the Deep Space Network — one at each complex (Goldstone, Madrid, Canberra). Their huge collecting area is reserved for the most distant or weakest spacecraft, such as the Voyagers, and for radar astronomy.
The modern workhorse antennas of the Deep Space Network. A beam-waveguide design routes the signal through mirrors to equipment in a shielded room below, allowing several to be arrayed and supporting X- and Ka-band.
An earlier generation of 34 m Deep Space Network antenna with the feed at the dish, being gradually retired in favour of the beam-waveguide design.
Instead of one large dish, many smaller antennas whose signals are combined electronically to act as a single larger aperture. Arraying is a future direction for the Deep Space Network, offering flexible, scalable collecting area.
The main dish on a spacecraft, which focuses its signal into a narrow, high-gain beam that must be pointed accurately at Earth. It carries the high-rate science downlink — for example Voyager's 3.7 m dish.
A spacecraft antenna with a broader beam than the high-gain dish, trading data rate for easier pointing — useful during manoeuvres or as a backup.
A near-omnidirectional spacecraft antenna that needs no accurate pointing, used for command and low-rate telemetry — the safety-net link that works even when a spacecraft has lost attitude control.
An optical (laser) communication terminal that transmits data on an infrared beam rather than radio. NASA's Deep Space Optical Communications terminal flew on the Psyche spacecraft and set deep-space data-rate records.