Downsize = Upgrade

摘要

Last february, NASA began an upgrade of its Deep Space Network antennas, starting with the dishes in Canberra, Australia. All of the network's 230-foot-rnwide antennas (center, in photo above) will be replaced with dishes half that width that will carry several frequency bandwidths, including higher-frequency, wider-bandwidth signals of the "Ka band," which is required for all missions approved after 2009. The smaller dishes are "beam wave guide" antennas that will enable the network to operate on several different frequency bands within the same antenna. The agency plans to complete three new antennas in Canberra by 2018; work at the Goldstone, California and Madrid, Spain complexes will likely run through 2025. The Deep Space Network is managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California.