As part of the European Space Agency (ESA) the European Space Operations Centre (ESOC) operates the ground stations of the European Space Tracking network (ESTRACK). The network consists of nine stations, each with one or more antennas. The smaller dish antennas ranging from 4.5 to 15 meters in diameter are mainly used for tracking near earth satellites and spacecraft launches. Three large 35-meter diameter antennas were added more recently to provide ESA with its own deep space network (DSN).

The deep space network is used to communicate with spacecrafts on interplanetary missions. Due to the enormous distances of several 100 millions of kilometers, the downlink signals that need to be received are extremely weak. Signal strengths are of the order ~0.3 pW, or in other words about 400 billion times weaker than a typical cell phone signal.

To be able to process these signals it is of crucial importance to have access to low noise amplifiers with the best available performance. A better low noise amplifier will allow for a higher data-rate at a given signal strength. In order to achieve the best possible performance and receive as much data from the probes as possible, ESA has relied on the technology which Diramics now offers as the pH-100 series for the last 10 years.

Past missions such as “Mars Express”, “Venus Express” and “Herschel/Planck” have relied on communications using frequencies in the X-band. For future missions to Mercury and Jupiter ESA will rely on K/Ka-band communications. For this, the deep space network will be equipped with better Ka-band LNAs using the pH-100 technology. Upgrading the LNAs will allow for an approximately 60 % higher data rate due to a better signal to noise ratio.

Visit ESA’s website for more information.