The DSN Today

Since its beginnings in 1958, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has been investigating the solar system with robotic spacecraft - from planetary flyby probes to orbiters and landers. These highly sophisticated explorers have ventured outward from Earth to the farthest reaches of the solar system, gathering new information about the Sun, planets, rings, and moons; studying small bodies and the interplanetary medium; and photographing distant stars and galaxies.

None of these missions of discovery would be possible were it not for NASA's worldwide Deep Space Network (DSN), the essential radio communications link for NASA's interplanetary spacecraft and for some Earth-orbiting satellites as well. In addition to its communication functions, the DSN is used for radio science, radar observations, and radio astronomy.

NASA's Science Mission Directorate is responsible for the DSN, which is managed, technically directed, and operated for NASA by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), a division of the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in Pasadena, California.