Deep Space Network

The NASA Deep Space Network (DSN) is a worldwide network of American spacecraft communication ground segment facilities, located in the United States (California), Spain (Madrid), and Australia (Canberra), that supports NASA's interplanetary spacecraft missions. It also performs radio and radar astronomy observations for the exploration of the Solar System and the universe, and supports selected Earth-orbiting missions. DSN is part of the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). General information DSN currently consists of three deep-space communications facilities located such that a distant spacecraft is always in view of at least one station. They are: the Goldstone Deep Space Communications Complex outside Barstow, California. For details of Goldstone's contribution to the early days of space probe tracking, see Project Space Track; the Madrid Deep Space Communications Complex, west of Madrid, Spain; and the Canberra Deep Space Communication Complex (CDSCC) in the Australian Capital Territory, southwest of Canberra, Australia near the Tidbinbilla Nature Reserve.