Elfordstown Earthstation is a

ground station A ground station, Earth station, or Earth terminal is a terrestrial radio station designed for extraplanetary telecommunication with spacecraft (constituting part of the ground segment of the spacecraft system), or reception of radio waves fro ...

located near Midleton, County Cork, in the south of Ireland. It is operated by the National Space Centre Ltd and is Ireland's only and Europe's most western teleport.

History

The Elfordstown site was originally commissioned by Telecom Éireann in association with

Eutelsat Eutelsat S.A. is a French satellite operator. Providing coverage over the entire European continent, the Middle East, Africa, Asia and the Americas, it is the world's third-largest satellite operator in terms of revenues. Eutelsat's satellit ...

and came into service in 1984, with the purpose of broadcasting voice, data and television services across Europe and between the United States and the continent. However, with the laying of transatlantic fibre cables, starting with PTAT-1 in 1989 , the 32m antenna had become redundant by 1997 and was left idle for a number of years. After several years unused, National Space Centre Ltd. took over the Elfordstown facility in 2010, installing a number of new

satellite dish A satellite dish is a dish-shaped type of parabolic antenna designed to receive or transmit information by radio waves to or from a communication satellite A communications satellite is an artificial satellite that relays and amplifies radi ...

es and implementing a number of commercial and research based projects. The new complex was completed in April 2013.

Location

Elfordstown Earthstation is located about 5 km north of Midleton and can be reached via a 3 km private road. The area is bounded by a 2.5m fence and can only be visited after registration. The facility consists of the main building with staff offices and rooms for research and development activities. A second, smaller building contains the generators for emergency power supplies as well as some more small buildings on the area for antenna purposes. The site with a size of 30,000 square meters is dominated by the 32m diameter C band antenna, which is currently not in operation. With the new 9.1m Ka band antenna built in 2011, it currently operates five antennas from 3.7m to 13.1m and many smaller dishes. The antennas are capable of communication in the C-, Ku-, Ka-, and

S band The S band is a designation by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) for a part of the microwave band of the electromagnetic spectrum covering frequencies from 2 to 4 gigahertz (GHz). Thus it crosses the convention ...

.Corporate & Commercial Overview brochure of the NSC, 2014, page 5 A 121.3 metres tall free-standing lattice tower on the area of Elfordstown Earthstation is used for radio relay links to and from the facility.

Current operations

National Space Centre Ltd uses Elfordstown Earthstation to operate on a number of levels, working closely with both private companies and governmental and bodies. Especially ground station operations and Earth observation with every type of satellite ( low Earth orbit, medium Earth orbit and

geosynchronous orbit A geosynchronous orbit (sometimes abbreviated GSO) is an Earth-centered orbit with an orbital period that matches Earth's rotation on its axis, 23 hours, 56 minutes, and 4 seconds (one sidereal day). The synchronization of rotation and orbital ...

) and secure data server hosting services are provided.

Projects

National Space Centre possesses a Research and Development department, that partakes in numerous Irish, European and International research-based projects. Many of these projects are run through well-known bodies including 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 ...

References

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External links

National Space Centre
Ground stations 1984 establishments in Ireland Buildings and structures in County Cork Earth stations in Ireland