Enabling & Support
New Norcia station
ESA's New Norcia station, DSA-1 (Deep Space Antenna-1), hosts a 35 m-diameter parabolic antenna and is located 140 km north of Perth, Western Australia, close to the town of New Norcia. DSA-1 communicates with deep-space missions, typically at ranges in excess of 2 million km. It is also capable of supporting the ultra-precise 'delta-DOR' navigation technique.
On 14 December 2013, New Norcia station supported the powered descent of China's Chang'e-3 Moon mission; the station measured the Doppler shift of signals from the spacecraft. Recording this helped Chinese engineers to reconstruct the trajectory for future reference.
