Encyclopedia > Canberra Deep Space Communications Complex
70m telescope at the Canberra Deep Space Communications Complex
Tidbinbilla Locality Map
The Canberra Deep Space Communications Complex (CDSCC) is located in Australia at Tidbinbilla in a valley of the Murrumbidgee River, about half an hours drive out of Canberra in the Australian Capital Territory, accessible from either the northern or southern suburbs from the Paddy's River Road. (see map: the Tidbinbilla Nature Park is marked by the star, with the station in the valley mid-way towards the Weston Creek (district) suburban area.
The station is seperated from Canberra by the Murrumbidgee River, but most notably by the Coolamon Ridge and Urambi Hills that help shield the city's RF noise from the dishes. Located nearby is the Tidbinbilla Nature Reserve.
The CSIRO manages most of NASA's activities in Australia. Since March 2003, Raytheon Australia has managed the CDSCC on behalf of the CSIRO and NASA.
The station's collimation tower is some 3km to the north-west, on Black Hill.
External links
Official CDSCC Webpage (http://www.cdscc.nasa.gov/)
This is a stub related to the city of Canberra. See the WikiProject Canberra for article coordination, and this template's What links here page (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Special:Whatlinkshere&target=Template%3ACanberra-stub) for a list of other Canberra-related stubs.
The Goldstone DeepSpaceCommunicationsComplex, located in the Mojave Desert in California, is one of three complexes which comprise NASA'sDeepSpace Network (DSN).
The DSN provides radio communications for all of NASA's interplanetary spacecraft and is also utilized for radio astronomy and radar observations of the solar system and the universe.
The amount of time mission scientist get to track and communicate with their spacecraft is determined through a DSN management team, which gives priority to vehicles performing critical maneuvers such as going into orbit around a planet.
Work began on Space Station Freedom as a focus for the manned space program but within NASA there was argument that these projects came at the expense of more inspiring unmanned missions such as the Voyager probes.
The space shuttle will be retired in 2010 and Orion will replace it by 2014, capable of both docking with the ISS and leaving the Earth's orbit.
The Space Shuttles were able to dock with the space station Mir while it was operational, and are now able to dock with the International Space Station - a joint project of many space agencies.
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