Perth Station was an

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 ...

Earth station in Australia, located at the

Perth International Telecommunications Centre The Perth International Telecommunications Centre (PITC) is located in the northeastern Perth suburb of Cullacabardee, and has handled a large percentage of Australian telecommunications company Telstra's satellite communications since its openin ...

in the suburb of Cullacabardee. It has been retired from service in December, 2015 and has been replaced by the

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 ...

. The site has hosted a 15-metre diameter antenna that transmitted in

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 conventional ...

and received in both S- and

X-band The X band is the designation for a band of frequencies in the microwave radio region of the electromagnetic spectrum. In some cases, such as in communication engineering, the frequency range of the X band is rather indefinitely set at approxim ...

s. There were plans to upgrade to X-band transmission in 2004. There was also a

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 ...

Tracking and Data Facility. The site had its own no-break power plant. The facility was used to routinely communicate with the

XMM-Newton ''XMM-Newton'', also known as the High Throughput X-ray Spectroscopy Mission and the X-ray Multi-Mirror Mission, is an X-ray space observatory launched by the European Space Agency in December 1999 on an Ariane 5 rocket. It is the second cornerst ...

spacecraft. It was also used during the Launch and Early Orbit Phase of various satellite launches.

External links

ESA webpage on ESTRACK, including links to all stations

ESA/ESTRACK Perth station page
European Space Agency ESTRACK facilities Buildings and structures in Perth, Western Australia Earth stations in Western Australia 2015 disestablishments in Australia {{WesternAustralia-stub