The European Space Tracking (ESTRACK) network consists of a number of ground-based space-tracking stations belonging to the

European Space Agency , owners = , headquarters = Paris, Île-de-France, France , coordinates = , spaceport = Guiana Space Centre , seal = File:ESA emblem seal.png , seal_size = 130px , image = Views in the Main Control Room (1205 ...

(ESA), and operated by the European Space Operations Centre (ESOC) in

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, Germany. The stations support various ESA spacecraft and facilitate communications between ground operators and scientific probes such as XMM-Newton, Mars Express, BepiColombo,

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. Similar networks are run by the

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China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

, Russia,

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, and India.

Composition

The Core ESTRACK network is composed of seven ESA-owned ground stations and the ESTRACK Control Centre in the ESOC. Four of the stations are used for tracking satellites and launchers near Earth and three are used for tracking deep-space probes. Service contracts with commercially operated ground stations and cooperation agreements with international partners allows the network to track satellites that aren't in view of the ESA owned ground stations.

ESA stations

Core Ground Stations

* Kourou Station (French Guiana) * Kiruna Station (Sweden) *

Redu Station Redu Station is an ESTRACK radio Antenna (electronics), antenna station for communication with spacecraft. The station is located in Wallonia, about one kilometre away from the village of Redu, Belgium. The ground terminals provide tracking capab ...

(Belgium) *

Santa Maria Island Station Santa Maria Island Station (also known as SMA or Montes das Flores, ''Hill of Flowers'') is an ESTRACK satellite ground station in the Azores, from the town of Vila do Porto on the island of Santa Maria Island, Santa Maria. Station currently opera ...

(Azores, Portugal)

Deep Space ''Antennas''

Cebreros Station Cebreros Station (also known as DSA 2 or Deep Space Antenna 2) is a European Space Agency, ESTRACK radio antenna station for communication with spacecraft, located about 10 km east of Cebreros and 90 km from Madrid, Spain, operated by th ...

(Spain) * New Norcia Station (Australia) * Malargüe Station (Argentina)

Augmented Network

* South Point * Santiago * Troll *

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* Dongara

Cooperative Network

Poker Flat The Poker Flat Research Range (PFRR) is a launch facility and rocket range for sounding rockets in the U.S. state of Alaska, located on a site at Chatanika, about 30 miles (50 km) northeast of Fairbanks and 1.5 degrees south of the Arc ...

* Goldstone * Weilheim * Esrange *

Hartebeesthoek The Hartebeesthoek Radio Astronomy Observatory (HartRAO) is a radio astronomy observatory, located in a natural bowl of hills at Hartebeesthoek just south of the Magaliesberg mountain range, Gauteng, South Africa, about 50 km west of Johanne ...

* Malindi Space Centre (Kenya) * Kerguelen * Usuda * Masuda *

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Former stations

* Perth Station (Australia) *

Maspalomas Station Maspalomas Station is an INTA-operated, ESTRACK radio antenna ground station for communication with spacecraft located at the southern area of Gran Canaria island, on the INTA campus. It is situated on the Montaña Blanca hill and is visible fro ...

(Gran Canaria, Spain) *

Villafranca Station Villafranca Station (also known as VILSPA) was an ESTRACK satellite ground station in Spain, north from the city of Madrid in a Villanueva de la Cañada, within the area of European Space Astronomy Centre. Station currently operates 15m S-band ant ...

(Spain)

Antennas

Each ESTRACK station is different, supporting multiple missions, some sharing one or more of the same missions. The ESTRACK core network consists of: *Three 35-metre diameter deep space antennas (New Norcia, Cebreros and Malargüe). *Three 15-metre antennas (Kourou, Kiruna, Redu) *One 13-metre antenna (Kiruna) *One 5.5-metre antenna (Santa-Maria) *One 4.5-meter antenna (New-Norcia 2) *One 2-meter antenna (Malindi, Kenya) *Six

GPS The Global Positioning System (GPS), originally Navstar GPS, is a Radionavigation-satellite service, satellite-based radionavigation system owned by the United States government and operated by the United States Space Force. It is one of t ...

-TDAF antennas The antennas are remotely operated from the ESTRACK Network Operations Centre (NOC) located at ESOC. The ESTRACK core network is completed by antenna belonging to cooperative agencies and antennas belonging to commercial partners. On 1 January 2013, the 35-metre station Marlargüe became the newest station to join the ESTRACK Deep Space Network. The station in Santa-Maria can be used to track Ariane launches and it is also capable of tracking Vega and Soyuz launchers operated from ESA's Spaceport at Kourou, French Guiana..
ESA – ESA Spacecraft Operations – Boosting capability: Santa Maria station to join ESTRACK
/ref> The antenna in Malindi ( Malindi Space Centre (Kenya)) can be used for Launch and Early Orbit Phases. The small antenna in New-Norcia can be used for Launch and Early Orbit Phases and for tracking rain, Vega and Soyuz launchers operated from ESA's Spaceport at Kourou, French Guiana.

References

External links

ESA Operations website

{{Use British English, date=January 2014 * Deep Space Network Ground stations European Space Agency