The Gölbaşı Ground Station ( tr, Gölbaşı Uydu Yer Kontrol Merkezi) 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 ...

designed as a terminal for telecommunication with Türksat spacecraft. Owned and operated by the state-owned telecommunications provider Türksat company, it is situated in Gölbaşı district of Ankara Province in Turkey. The earth station was established in 1994 for servicing Turkey's first communications satellite

Türksat 1B Turksat 1B was a Turkish communications satellite as part of a project to form an instant network with two geosynchronous satellites that is supervised by the companies Türksat A.Ş. in Turkey and Aérospatiale of France. Türksat 1B was launch ...

launched on August 11 that year. For the location of its backup facility, the campus of

Middle East Technical University Middle East Technical University (commonly referred to as METU; in Turkish language, Turkish, ''Orta Doğu Teknik Üniversitesi'', ODTÜ) is a public university, public Institute of technology, technical university located in Ankara, Turkey. The ...

(ODTÜ) was chosen, about away. The ground station consists of equipment such as and

parabolic antenna A parabolic antenna is an antenna that uses a parabolic reflector, a curved surface with the cross-sectional shape of a parabola, to direct the radio waves. The most common form is shaped like a dish and is popularly called a dish antenna or pa ...

s of high reliance, electronic devices, data processing system and

uninterrupted power supply An uninterruptible power supply or uninterruptible power source (UPS) is an electrical apparatus that provides emergency power to a load when the input power source or mains power fails. A UPS differs from an auxiliary or emergency power syste ...

unit for telecommunication with the Türksat 1C, 2A 3A satellites currently in orbit. The backup station has a antenna available. The facility features, in full backup, a satellite control center, an observation and control center, a communications observation center and a data encryption center. Further, a satellite simulator provides training for the operators, which is also used for approval purposes of procedures to be applied on the spacecraft. Since the ground station in Gölbaşı is capable of servicing three satellites at a time only, it is projected to expand its capacity with regard of the launch of Türksat 4A satellite in 2014. The construction of a backup ground station in Konya is planned.

Earthquake risk

On December 20, 2007, an earthquake of 5.7 magnitude occurred in

Balâ, Ankara Bala is a town and district of Ankara Province in the Central Anatolia region of Turkey, 67 km south-east of the city of Ankara. According to 2000 census, population of the district is 19,426 of which 8,506 live in the urban center of Bal ...

, about far from Gölbaşı Ground Station. Although the ground station was not affected by the earthquake, the incident showed the possible risk of telecommunication blackout and loss of satellites in orbit in case of an earthquake. Due to proximity of the backup facility to the ground station, the earthquake risk is much high. It is required that the backup facility's location should be at least away. A report states that when the link between the spacecraft and the earth station is interrupted for a period of 48 hours, the re-establishment of the link is unlikely.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Golbasi Satellite Control Ground Center Earth stations in Turkey 1994 establishments in Turkey Buildings and structures completed in 1994 Buildings and structures in Ankara Province Satellite Control Ground Center