ESA antenna construction

This image shows construction of ESA's 15-m antenna at Carnarvon, Australia, ca. 1985

A 15 m-diameter tracking station was installed first at the then-existing Carnarvon, Western Australia, facility in July 1985 to help support Giotto, ESA’s first deep-space mission, which encountered Comet Halley in 1986.

Upon completion of initial Giotto support in 1987, and with the pending closure of Carnarvon, the Overseas Telecommunications Commission (OTC(2); which later became Telstra), the Australian telecommunications company owning the Carnarvon Station and also providing the local operations and maintenance (O&M) services for ESA, disassembled, relocated and re-commissioned the entire facility, including the antenna, at the Perth International Telecommunications Centre (PITC), near the city of Perth, Western, Australia.

Perth antenna was retired on 31 December 2015.