Upon receiving its first signals from the first spacecraft to closely observe Mars, Mariner 4, on March 18, 1966, Deep Space Station 14 (DSS-14) was nicknamed the “Mars Antenna.” Originally a 64 meter (210 foot) antenna, DSS-14 was upgraded to 70 meters (230 feet) in May 1988 to receive the faint signals transmitted by Voyager 2 as it…
Upon receiving its first signals from the first spacecraft to closely observe Mars, Mariner 4, on March 18, 1966, Deep Space Station 14 (DSS-14) was nicknamed the “Mars Antenna.” Originally a 64 meter (210 foot) antenna, DSS-14 was upgraded to 70 meters (230 feet) in May 1988 to receive the faint signals transmitted by Voyager 2 as it encountered Neptune. DSS-14 continues to receive signals from missions like Voyager 1, which entered into interstellar space in August 2012, about 12 billion miles from the sun. The 70 meter antennas in Goldstone, Canberra, and Madrid will be replaced with an array of four 34 meter (111 foot) Beam Waveguide (BWG) antennas as part of the Deep Space Network Aperture Enhancement Program (DAEP) by 2025.