Cebreros ground station
ESA’s next generation of astronomy and planetary missions are highly ambitious. Designed to open up new frontiers in space exploration, many of them will be placed very far away in space, not even orbiting Earth. To communicate with these deep-space missions, ESA is building-up a new network of deep-space antennas.
The powerful new 35-metre antenna at Cebreros in Ávila, Spain, is currently one of two ESA deep-space ground stations, the other being at New Norcia in Australia.
Cebreros’s first task is to support the Venus Express mission – the first ESA mission to our nearest neighbouring planet and the hottest in the Solar System – since October 2005.
Other interplanetary missions will follow, including BepiColombo, as well as missions orbiting the second Lagrangian point – a point beyond the Moon, 1.5 million kilometres from Earth – such as Herschel, Planck and Gaia.
