Malargüe Station

The Malargüe station antenna.

Malargüe Station (also known as DSA 3 or Deep Space Antenna 3) is a 35-metre ESTRACK radio antenna in Argentina.^[1] It enables the European Space Agency (ESA) to communication with spacecraft in deep space. It is located 40 kilometres (25 mi) south of the town of Malargüe, Argentina. The Malargüe antenna has two sister stations, Cebreros Station, near Madrid, Spain, and New Norcia Station near New Norcia, Australia. The completion of this station will allow deep space missions to be tracked continuously.

On 7 December 2011, the station's 35 m-diameter dish antenna was hoisted into place. The operation took several hours and had to wait for a calm day with no wind.^[2] The station underwent tests in 2012 and was fully operational in 2013.^[3]

Malargüe Station was one of the stations providing communications, tracking and data download from the Rosetta spacecraft.^[4]

References

1. "Malargüe - DSA 3". ESA. Retrieved 14 August 2014.
2. "Lifting of giant deep space antenna complete". ESA. 8 December 2011. Retrieved 14 August 2014.
3. Jenny Winder (5 November 2012). "Huge new ESA tracking station is ready for duty". Phys.org. Retrieved 14 August 2014.
4. "What’s up with Rosetta?". ESA. 18 August 2014. Retrieved 18 August 2014.

External links

• ESA webpage on ESTRACK, including links to all stations
• ESA webcam at Malargüe Station

Coordinates: 35°46′34″S 69°23′54″W / 35.776°S 69.3982°W