Picture Album of the
DEEP SPACE NETWORK

The Mojave Desert in 1958

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In the period immediately following the launch of Russia's Sputnik spacecraft, the U.S. government authorized probes to the Moon as a possible means of quickly restoring national prestige. As a result of this decision, the need for an initial ground-based deep-space communication station located in an environment as free of radio noise as possible became obvious. In March 1958, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, then under contract to the U.S. Army Ordnance Corps, chose a site on government-owned land as the location of this station: the desolate Goldstone Dry Lake area at Fort Irwin in the Mojave Desert, shown above, with a miner's shack the only building for miles around. The entire Goldstone Complex, leased from the U.S. Army by NASA, is now located on this land, a three-hour drive from Pasadena.

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