The forerunner of the Deep Space Network was established in January 1958, when JPL, then under contract to the U.S. Army, deployed portable radio tracking stations in Nigeria, Singapore, and California to receive telemetry and plot the orbit of the Army-launched Explorer 1, the first successful U.S. satellite.

NASA (and the DSN by extension) was officially established on October 1, 1958, to consolidate the separately developing space-exploration programs of the U.S. Army, U.S. Navy, and U.S. Air Force into one civilian organization.

Origin in the 1950s On December 3, 1958, JPL was transferred from the US Army to NASA and given responsibility for the design and execution of lunar and planetary exploration programs using remotely controlled spacecraft.

Shortly after the transfer NASA established the concept of the Deep Space Instrumentation Facility (DSIF) as a separately managed and operated communications system that would accommodate all deep space missions, thereby avoiding the need for each flight project to acquire and operate its own specialized space communications network.

The coded doppler, ranging, and command (CODORAC) system developed by Eberhardt Rechtin, Richard Jaffe, and Walt Victor became the basis for much of the DSIF's electronics.Andrew J. Butrica. "SP-4218 To See the Unseen". A history of planetary radar astronomy.Claire Marie-Peterson, Teresa Bailey, Eberhardt Rechtin. "Retelling the story: Architecting the Deep Space Network (DSN): Why we set it up the way we did" Susan Finley was part of the team that built the network's software.

In order to support deep space missions around the clock it was necessary to establish a network of three stations separated by approximately 120 degrees of longitude so that as the Earth turned a spacecraft was always above the horizon of at least one station. To this end two overseas facilities with 26m antennas were established to complement the 26m antenna sites (DSIF 11 and 12) at Goldstone in California. (DSIF 13 at Goldstone was used for research and development.) The first overseas site was DSIF 41 at Island Lagoon near Woomera in Australia. It was operated by the Australian Department of Supply which ran the Woomera Rocket Range. The other, DSIF 51, was at Hartebeesthoek near Johannesburg in South Africa, operated by the South African Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR). These two stations were completed in 1961. Each DSIF station had transmit and receive capability at 960 MHz in the L-band of the radio spectrum, and could process telemetry. Telephone and teletype circuits linked the stations to a mission operations room at JPL. As missions became more numerous the operations room developed into the Space Flight Operations Facility (which was designated a national historic landmark in 1985), and the personnel and equipment common to all missions were incorporated into the DSIF which was renamed the Deep Space Network in 1963.

The DSN was given responsibility for its own research, development, and operation in support of all of its users. Under this concept, it has contributed to the development of low-noise receivers; large parabolic-dish antennas; tracking, telemetry, and command systems; digital signal processing; and deep space navigation.

The Mariner Era 1961 to 1974

The DSN started the period able to support JPL designed spacecraft and telemetry and was progressively improved to cope with the increased demands placed upon it by new programs.

+ Missions supported in the Mariner era Program name Missiontype Number oflaunches Number ofmissions First launch Last launch Ranger Lunar photo 9 3 Aug 1961 Mar 1965 Mariner Venus or Mars flybyMars orbiterVenus flyby, Mercury orbiter 721 511 Jul 1962May 1971Nov 1973 Mar 1969May 1971Nov 1973 Pioneer InterplanetaryJupiter flyby 42 42 Dec 1965Mar 1972 Nov 1968Apr 1973 Surveyor Lunar lander 7 5 May 1966 Jan 1968 Lunar Orbiter Lunar photo 5 5 Aug 1966 Aug 1967 Apollo Piloted Lunar 16 7 Test6 Landers Nov 1967 Dec 1972

In 1963 the availability of new amplifiers and transmitters operating in the S-band (at 2,200 MHz) allowed the DSN to take advantage of better tracking performance at the higher frequency, and later missions were designed to use it. However the Ranger and early Mariner missions still needed L-band, so converters were installed at the stations along with the new S-band upgrades. These converters were removed at the end of the L-band missions. This transfer to S-band was a major enhancement of the DSN capabilities in this era; another was the introduction of rubidium frequency standards which improved the quality of radio Doppler data and hence improved the trajectory determinations needed for interplanetary missions.

As the supported and planned missions became more numerous it became clear that a second network of stations was required. For political and logistical reasons the new overseas stations were established at Robledo near Madrid in Spain, and at Tidbinbilla near Canberra in Australia, and the second network of 26m antennas was operational in 1965.

JPL had long recognized the need for larger antennas to support missions to distant planets and a 64 m antenna of a radical new design was built at Goldstone. It gave over six times the sensitivity of the 26 m antennas, more than doubling their tracking range. The station was commissioned in 1966 as DSS 14.

Mobile DSN equipment was used at Cape Canaveral to check out spacecraft compatibility and operation prior to launch, and monitor the early flight. In 1965 this became a permanent facility, DSS 71.

The early Surveyor missions were planned to launch with a direct-ascent trajectory to the Moon, rather than insertion from a parking orbit. Translunar injection would then be before spacecraft rise at DSS 51 or 61. To obtain the early trajectory data vital for mid-course corrections, a new station with a small and fast-moving antenna was built on Ascension Island and became DSS 72. The station was integrated with the Apollo program.

1966 to 1968

+ Deep Space Network in 1966 Location DSS Name DSSNo Antenna diameter Type of mount Initialoperation Goldstone, California PioneerEchoVenusMars 11121314 26 m26 m26 m64 m PolarPolarAz-ElAz-El 1958196219621966 Woomera, AustraliaCanberra Australia Island LagoonTidbinbilla 4142 26 m26 m PolarPolar 19611965 Johannesburg, South Africa Madrid Spain HartebeesthoekRobledo 5161 26 m26 m PolarPolar 19611965 Launch supportCape CanaveralAscension Island Spacecraft MonitorDevil's Ashpit 7172 1.2 m9 m Az-ElAz-El 19651966

In the 1966 to 1968 period the NASA lunar program of Surveyor, Lunar Orbiter and Apollo backup support almost fully utilized the DSN. The Pioneer, Surveyor and Lunar Orbiter programs all supplied mission-dependent equipment at the tracking stations for command and telemetry processing purposes and this could be quite large. For example, the Lunar Orbiter equipment at DSS 41 required the building of an extension to the control room, a photographic processing area and darkroom, and water de-mineralising equipment.13.8Mb pdf Station personnel maintained and operated the Pioneer equipment, but the considerably more involved Surveyor and Lunar Orbiter equipment was operated by mission personnel, at least on the early missions.

One network of three stations was equipped for Surveyor, and another network dedicated to Lunar Orbiter. Support was also needed for the Mariner 5 Venus mission, and for Pioneer 6-9 interplanetary spacecraft which kept operating long after their expected lifetimes. Mariner 4 was also picked up again. DSS 14, the new 64m antenna, was called on to support nearly all of these missions but not always as a prime site.

To simplify the problems of accommodating special command and telemetry equipment and personnel at stations, the DSN developed a "multi-mission" approach. A generic set of equipment would be provided that future missions would all use, and a start was made by introducing computers at the stations to decode telemetry. Mission dependent equipment could be replaced by separate computer programs for each mission. Another significant improvement at this time was the introduction of ranging systems that used a coded signal transmitted to and returned from the spacecraft. The time of travel was used to measure the range more accurately and to greater distances, and this improved trajectory determination and navigation. The station clocks were kept in synchronism to 5 microseconds using the "Moon Bounce" system. The Goldstone Venus station transmitted a coded X-band timing signal to each overseas station during mutual lunar viewing periods. The signal was tailored on each occasion to allow for the propagation time to the station via the Moon.

1969 to 1974

In 1969 the Mariner 6 and Mariner 7 spacecraft to Mars were in the same part of the sky and both in view of a DSN site at the same time, though not within the beamwidth of a single antenna. Tracking both simultaneously required two antennas and two telemetry data processors, one for each downlink. At the same time the interplanetary Pioneer spacecraft were tracked and backup support for Apollo was required. The DSN was again hard pressed to service all its customers. As Mars began to draw near towards the end of July, encounter operations began with Mariner 7 only five days behind Mariner 6. Corliss describes what happened next.

Mudgway continues:

Mariner 9, launched in 1971, was a Mars orbiter mission, a good deal more complicated than previous flyby missions and requiring precise navigation and high data rates. Since the last Mariner mission the Multi-Mission Telemetry System and the High-Rate Telemetry System (HRT) were fully operational. But the high speed data could only be sent when the 64m antenna at Goldstone was tracking.

At this time there was a substantial expansion of the number of antennas. An additional 26 m antenna and a 64 m antenna was built at each of Tidbinbilla and Robledo to support Apollo and Mariner 10 and the planned Viking missions. As part of a consolidation of stations into central locations, the Woomera station (DSS 41) was decommissioned in 1972. The antenna and basic receiving and power house equipment was offered to the Australian government, and although used by Australian scientists for groundbreaking VLBI measurements, it was eventually dismantled and scrapped due to logistical problems and the prohibitive cost of transporting it to a new location. DSS 51 in South Africa was similarly decommissioned in 1974, but in this case was taken over by the South African Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) and recommissioned as a radio astronomy facility, which is now Hartebeesthoek Radio Astronomy Observatory.

+ Deep Space Network in 1974 Location DSS name DSSNo Antenna diameter Type of mount Initialoperation Goldstone California PioneerEchoVenusMars 11121314 26m26m26m64m PolarPolarAz-ElAz-El 1958196219621966 Tidbinbilla Australia Weemala BallimaHoneysuckle Creek 424344 26m64m26m PolarAz-ElX-Y 196519731973 Madrid Spain RobledoCebrerosRobledo 616263 26m26m64m PolarPolarAz-El 196519671973