Picture Album of the
DEEP SPACE NETWORK

Mobile Tracking Station

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The Mobile Tracking Station (MTS) was designed by JPL to receive and record telemetered data and to generate radio metric data during the injection phase of a deep space probe flight, when the apparent motion of a spacecraft is relatively fast. It is essential to monitor a spacecraft during this period for early determination of its trajectory and, consequently, easier subsequent signal acquisition by the 26-meter (85.3-foot) antennas after the craft begins to move apparently from east to west.

In addition to a 3.3-meter (10-foot) antenna (inside the radome) whose wider beam and faster tracking rate enabled it to acquire spacecraft signals more easily than the 26-meter antennas, the station comprised a collimation tower and several vans that housed associated electronics and provided office space. The MTS was originally built by JPL in 1958 to support the Pioneer lunar probe attempts, but was first deployed at Mayaguez, Puerto Rico, where it also received telemetry from a radiation-measuring instrument designed by James Van Allen as the Pioneer probes passed through the newly discovered radiation belts named for this scientist. The station was subsequently returned to Goldstone for modification and redeployed in 1961 to a site at Johannesburg, South Africa, near the new deep-space station. The MTS was decommissioned in 1966 after the last of the Ranger flights.

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