ESC
NASA’s Near Space Network
The Near Space Network provides missions out to 1.25 million miles (2 million kilometers) with premier communications and navigation services, enabling spacecraft to exchange critical data with mission operators on Earth.
The Near Space Network
Managed out of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, the Near Space Network fulfills user mission requirements through a blend of government and commercial assets. The Exploration and Space Communications projects division leads Near Space Network operations and innovations, delivering full, high-rate coverage and bold, forward-thinking solutions to the advancement of space exploration.
Using space relays in geosynchronous orbit and a global system of government and commercial antennas on Earth, NASA’s Near Space Network brings down terabytes of science data each day. The Near Space Network supports missions of all kinds, including human spaceflight, science and exploration, technology demonstrations, rocket launches, and more.
management/Operations
Goddard Space Flight Center
program office
Space Communications and Navigation
Missions supported
100+
service distance within
1.25 million mi (2 million km)
The Network
Every day, the Near Space Network is advancing its capabilities to support science and exploration missions that use enhanced instrumentation. Learn more about the missions, launches, and network services offered through the Exploration and Space Communications projects division.
Watch moreWhat is the Near Space Network?
The Near Space Network supports missions from launch to splashdown.
NASA's Near Space Network enables satellites to transmit critical science information to Earth while also exchanging tracking, telemetry, and command data with mission operators. The network leverages the broad spectrum of capabilities available through government and commercial service providers and negotiates with providers on behalf of all missions to lower costs. Users can confidently rely on the expertise of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, which has a legacy of excellence in managing NASA communications services.
The Near Space Network makes NASA and non-NASA missions possible.
Some of the many missions that the Near Space Network supports include the International Space Station and visiting vehicles (rendezvous with SpaceX, Northrop Grumman, and Boeing spacecraft), the Hubble Space Telescope, the Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem (PACE), Swift, Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE), ICESat-2, and CubeSats (BurstCube, SNooPI, TBIRD, SeaHawk-1, etc.).
The Near Space Network acts as a single point of contact for missions.
With the Near Space Network, missions no longer need to independently research service providers. The network secures services from both government and commercial assets to achieve mission objectives to deliver communications capabilities, space links, and data transports for users, ensuring robust and reliable services that fully support mission objectives.
The Near Space Network will work with private industry to deliver comprehensive network services to missions.
By the late 2020s, NASA plans to rely primarily on industry-provided communications services for missions close to Earth. To accomplish this, the network released a Request for Proposal (RFP) in 2023 seeking relay and direct-to-Earth service providers. In 2024, NASA selected four commercial companies: Intuitive Machines of Houston, Kongsberg Satellite Services of Norway, the Swedish Space Corporation (SSC) Space U.S. Inc. of Pennsylvania, and Viasat, Inc. of Georgia. These four companies will expand the Near Space Network’s direct-to-Earth capabilities. In a separate award contract under the same RFP, NASA awarded Intuitive Machines, LLC of Houston, to develop lunar relay systems as part of the Near Space Network.
The Near Space Network values innovation.
If you have any questions or would like to be considered by the Near Space Network as a potential commercial services provider, contact nasa-commercialsynergies@mail.nasa.gov.
Near Space Network Services
The Near Space Network serves missions throughout their entire lifecycle, providing requirements analysis, spectrum management, communications analysis, service agreements, mission design and planning, launch, operations, and post-mission activities. As a result, the network ensures its users have robust and reliable services that fully support mission objectives.
Submit a Service Inquiry FormNear Space Network Resources
Working with Industry
The Near Space Network is committed to innovation in communications and navigation through commercialization. If you have any questions or would like to be considered by the Near Space Network as a potential commercial services provider, please contact us!
Learn More
Network Upgrades
Cloud-based Services
Modernizing ground station data handling — shifting mission processing into the cloud to make Near Space Network services more flexible, scalable, and cost-efficient for missions.
NASA’s DAPHNE (Data Acquisition Processing and Handling Network Environment) is a cloud-based system that streamlines how satellite mission data is collected, processed, and delivered. Traditionally, each ground station required racks of mission-specific hardware, making operations costly and inflexible. DAPHNE replaces much of that with a leaner local setup that captures data during satellite passes, then shifts most of the mission-unique processing into the cloud. This approach allows NASA to standardize operations across stations, cut down on hardware footprints, and tap into scalable computing power on demand.
By moving to a cloud-enabled model, DAPHNE offers greater agility, reduced costs, and faster response to changing mission needs. Servers and processing tools can be spun up or scaled down as required, giving missions more flexibility to handle large or unexpected data volumes. Already deployed in multiple antennas, DAPHNE supports major missions like NISAR and PACE.
International Space Station Data Upgrade
Several components of the space station were upgraded to support an increased data rate, which included implementation of a new digital ground architecture.
In 2019, the Near Space Network doubled the rate at which the International Space Station returns data to Earth, raising data rates from 300 megabits per second (Mbps) to 600 Mbps. This upgrade enables the space station to send back more data at once than ever before. The space station communicates with Earth through radio frequency signals using NASA’s constellation of Tracking and Data Relay Satellites and ground-based antennas, both operated by the Near Space Network.
Technicians updated the space station’s software-based modem, improved data processors at various NASA centers, enhanced routers, and improved other equipment and software at the ground stations. The circuits and bandwidth of the terrestrial data lines between the various Earth-based components were also upgraded.
Near Space Network Initiative for Ka-band Advancement (NIKA)
The Near Space Network advanced radio frequency networking capabilities through the Near Space Network Initiative for Ka-band Advancement (NIKA).
In December 2022, four antennas in Fairbanks, Alaska; Wallops Island, Virginia; Punta Arenas, Chile; and Svalbard, Norway, went online to provide present and future missions with S-, X-, and Ka-band communications capabilities using a combination of both government and commercial assets.
Now operational, the four antennas are integrated into the network’s service catalog, advancing its capabilities to support science and exploration missions that use enhanced instrumentation. Now, missions using the network will be able to send back terabytes of data for processing and discovery.
Launch Communications Segment (LCS)
NASA’s Near Space Network managed the development and continuous operations of Launch Communications Segment (LCS).
The Launch Communications Segment (LCS) is a product of interagency and inter-center collaboration that improves efficiencies, reduces costs, and enables NASA’s Artemis missions to the Moon.
Built in parallel with the Artemis missions’ requirements, this system consists of three stations: the Kennedy Uplink Station and Ponce de Leon Tracking Station in Florida, and the Bermuda Tracking Station in Bermuda.
These three stations collect data from the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and Orion spacecraft and send that data to Artemis mission controllers who are tracking and commanding the mission.
Near Space Operations Control Center
Supporting NASA, Industry, and Other Government Agencies
During a launch, the network could be communicating with the rocket, or the rocket and the mission it is launching. For example, during the launch of NASA's Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem (PACE) mission, the NSOCC team was monitoring the United Launch Alliance's (ULA) Atlas V rocket and the PACE spacecraft contained inside of the payload fairing. Now PACE is in orbit, downlinking terabytes of data each day through the Near Space Network.<br><br>The NSOCC supports multiple launch vehicle types, including rockets from NASA, other government agencies, and the commercial aerospace industry. Some examples of supported rockets include JAXA's H-IIA & H3, ESA's Ariane 5 & 6, and SpaceX's Falcon Heavy and Starship. These rockets launch anything from science missions to technology demonstrations to crews going to the International Space Station.
The Home of Near Space Network Launch Operations
In addition to day-to-day mission support, the Near Space Network provides communications and navigation services to launches as well via the Near Space Operations Control Center.<br>Mission managers at the Near Space Operations Control Center (NSOCC) centralize communications from different NASA control centers around the globe to ensure a mission's pre-launch, launch, and post-launch operations are successful. During real-time launch efforts, personnel sit on-console communicating with the launch site and other network locations. (See the map below).
A Historic Place
The NSOCC is a key part of ensuring smooth launch operations and has a storied legacy in supporting many historic missions including Gemini, Apollo, and every Space Shuttle mission.
Through the Decades
Throughout NASA's existence the NSOCC has had many names – Network Integration Center, Network Communications Center, and the Manned Space Flight Operations Control Center to name a few.
More about the Near Space Network
NASA Seeks Commercial Near Space Network Services
The International Space Station: 20 Years of Communications Excellence
NASA Enables Future of Science Observation through Tri-band Antennas
New Ground Station Brings Laser Communications Closer To Reality
