Cebreros Station (also known as DSA 2 or Deep Space Antenna 2) is a European Space Agency,

ESTRACK The European Space Tracking (ESTRACK) network consists of a number of ground-based space-tracking stations belonging to the European Space Agency (ESA), and operated by the European Space Operations Centre (ESOC) in Darmstadt, Germany. The stations ...

radio Radio is the technology of signaling and communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 30 hertz (Hz) and 300 gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a transmit ...

antenna Antenna ( antennas or antennae) may refer to: Science and engineering * Antenna (radio), also known as an aerial, a transducer designed to transmit or receive electromagnetic (e.g., TV or radio) waves * Antennae Galaxies, the name of two collid ...

station for communication with

spacecraft A spacecraft is a vehicle or machine designed to fly in outer space. A type of artificial satellite, spacecraft are used for a variety of purposes, including communications, Earth observation, meteorology, navigation, space colonization, p ...

, located about 10 km east of

Cebreros Cebreros () is a Municipalities in Spain, municipality of Spain, located in the province of Ávila, part of the autonomous community of Castile and León. As of 2018 it had a population of 3,056. The municipality covers an area of 137.47 km2. ...

and 90 km from

Madrid Madrid ( , ) is the capital and most populous city of Spain. The city has almost 3.4 million inhabitants and a metropolitan area population of approximately 6.7 million. It is the second-largest city in the European Union (EU), and ...

, Spain, operated by the European Space Operations Centre and

INTA Inta (russian: Инта́, kv, Инта) is a town in the Komi Republic, Russia. Population: History Inta was founded circa 1940 as a settlement to support a geological expedition to explore coal deposits and projecting of mines. The city's n ...

. A 35-metre diameter antenna that receives and transmit in X- and

Ka-band The Ka band (pronounced as either "kay-ay band" or "ka band") is a portion of the microwave part of the electromagnetic spectrum defined as frequencies in the range 26.5–40 gigahertz (GHz), i.e. wavelengths from slightly over one centime ...

s is located at the site. Station code is "CEB". 20 kW CW High Power Amplifier (HPA) it was created by Rheinmetall Italia SpA (Italy). The monitoring and control system was implemented by Microsis srl (Italy). It provides daily support to Lisa Pathfinder,

Mars Express ''Mars Express'' is a space exploration mission being conducted by the European Space Agency (ESA). The ''Mars Express'' mission is exploring the planet Mars, and is the first planetary mission attempted by the agency. "Express" originally ref ...

and

Gaia In Greek mythology, Gaia (; from Ancient Greek , a poetical form of , 'land' or 'earth'),, , . also spelled Gaea , is the personification of the Earth and one of the Greek primordial deities. Gaia is the ancestral mother—sometimes parthenog ...

. It also provided support for

Rosetta Rosetta or Rashid (; ar, رشيد ' ; french: Rosette ; cop, ϯⲣⲁϣⲓⲧ ''ti-Rashit'', Ancient Greek: Βολβιτίνη ''Bolbitinē'') is a port city of the Nile Delta, east of Alexandria, in Egypt's Beheira governorate. The Ro ...

. Two sister stations are

New Norcia Station New Norcia Station (also known as NNO) is an ESTRACK Earth station in Australia for communication with spacecraft after launch, in low earth orbit, in geostationary orbit and in deep space. It is located south of the town of New Norcia, West ...

in Australia, and

Malargüe Station Malargüe Station (also known as DSA 3 or Deep Space Antenna 3) is a 35-metre ESTRACK radio antenna in Argentina. It enables the European Space Agency (ESA) to communicate with spacecraft in deep space. It is located south of the town of Malargü ...

Argentina Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the second-largest country in South America after Brazil, th ...

Until 2002, ESA lacked its own means to communicate with ships destined to other planets, or in very distant orbits and depended on NASA's network of listeners to receive the data collected by them.

Description

The mobile dish of the antenna is 35 meters in diameter. The entire structure measures 40 meters in height and weighs 620 tons. The foundations begin at 20 meters deep. Much of the machinery responsible for moving the antenna is underground. It has more data acquisition capacity than the New Norcia antenna, since it receives and transmits information in the

Ka band The Ka band (pronounced as either "kay-ay band" or "ka band") is a portion of the microwave part of the electromagnetic spectrum defined as frequencies in the range 26.5–40 gigahertz (GHz), i.e. wavelengths from slightly over one centim ...

(31.8 - 32.3 GHz) as well as reception in the X band. Its target has an error of only six millidegrees (which is ten times more accurate than the usual monitoring antennas of 15 meters in diameter). It has 250 temperature sensors distributed throughout the structure, so that it can auto-adjust automatically in case of expansion and contraction of the material due to meteorological changes. With respect to the New Norcia antenna, it is also faster in azimuth and elevation, and is able to withstand a more intense wind. Usually, the antenna is operated remotely from the European Space Operations Center (

ESOC The European Space Operations Centre (ESOC) serves as the main mission control centre for the European Space Agency (ESA) and is located in Darmstadt, Germany. ESOC's primary function is the operation of unmanned spacecraft on behalf of ESA and ...

) located in

Darmstadt Darmstadt () is a city in the States of Germany, state of Hesse in Germany, located in the southern part of the Frankfurt Rhine Main Area, Rhine-Main-Area (Frankfurt Metropolitan Region). Darmstadt has around 160,000 inhabitants, making it th ...

(Germany).

Site

The station is located in a very quiet location, surrounded by pine and rockrose. Apart from its privileged situation, the choice fell on Cebreros because it has the necessary geographical coordinates (120 degrees east or west of the Nueva Norcia station) and the lack of radioelectric interference produced by mobile telephony. At first, the option of Villafranca del Castillo (

) was considered, where ESA already has a Space Astronomy Center ( ESAC), but it was discarded due to its accelerated urban development, which would have been, without a doubt, a safe source of interference. Another argument in favor of Cebreros was to have the facilities that

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. NASA was established in 1958, succeeding t ...

used in the 1960s and 1970s to monitor the

Apollo Apollo, grc, Ἀπόλλωνος, Apóllōnos, label=genitive , ; , grc-dor, Ἀπέλλων, Apéllōn, ; grc, Ἀπείλων, Apeílōn, label=Arcadocypriot Greek, ; grc-aeo, Ἄπλουν, Áploun, la, Apollō, la, Apollinis, label= ...

spacecraft.

abandoned the use of this station in 1983 for budgetary reasons and ceded the facilities to the Spanish government.

Construction

The search for the site for the Cebreros station began in April 2002, although construction did not start until January 2003. It lasted a little over two years (it ended in August 2005, and since then it has been running on tests) .The construction was the responsibility of a consortium led by the companies SED Systems (Canada) and by Vertex Antennentechnik (Germany). The Spanish companies ESTEYCO and NECSO were responsible for the infrastructure of the antenna tower, while LV Salamanca was responsible for the infrastructure and the remodeling of the building. The cost of Cebreros station has been about 30 million euros, of which 22 have been for the antenna. The first director was Spanish

Valeriano Claros Valeriano may refer to the following people ;Given name *Valeriano Abello (1913–2000), Filipino scout during World War II * Valeriano Bécquer (1833–1870), Spanish painter and graphic artist *Valeriano López (1926–1993), Peruvian football ...

Missions

It covered interplanetary missions, such as the

space probe, sent into space in 2004 to land for the first time on a comet, the Churyumov-Gerasimenko, after a ten-year star voyage, and the routine operations of the

Venus Express ''Venus Express'' (VEX) was the first Venus exploration mission of the European Space Agency (ESA). Launched in November 2005, it arrived at Venus in April 2006 and began continuously sending back science data from its polar orbit around Venus. ...

mission, and is used currently as support for the

. The station participates in missions as

BepiColombo BepiColombo is a joint mission of the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) to the planet Mercury. The mission comprises two satellites launched together: the Mercury Planetary Orbiter (MPO) and ''Mio'' ...

, Herschel,

Planck Max Karl Ernst Ludwig Planck (, ; 23 April 1858 – 4 October 1947) was a German theoretical physicist whose discovery of energy quanta won him the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1918. Planck made many substantial contributions to theoretical p ...

LISA Pathfinder LISA Pathfinder, formerly Small Missions for Advanced Research in Technology-2 (SMART-2), was an ESA spacecraft that was launched on 3 December 2015 on board Vega flight VV06. The mission tested technologies needed for the Laser Interferometer S ...

and

space telescopes.

References

External links

ESA webpage on ESTRACK, including links to all stations

ESA/ESTRACK Cebreros station page

Cebreros Station live webcam
{{Use British English, date=January 2014 European Space Agency ESTRACK facilities Earth stations in Spain Buildings and structures in the Community of Madrid INTA facilities 2005 establishments in Spain Buildings and structures completed in 2005