Deep Space Station 35, a $50 million antennae, was erected today in Tidbinbilla reports ABC News.
The 34-metre dish took three years to build and will go online in October 2014 in time to help track NASA’s New Horizons mission before the spacecraft reaches Pluto.
It joins the existing 70-metre dish and two other 34-metre dishes at NASA’s only southern hemisphere communication centre.
Project support specialist Tony Ross says the Tidbinbilla site will become more important over the next 10 to 15 years.
“There’s a bit of a wobble in the earth’s orbit and what that means is the southern hemisphere is getting a better look at the ecliptic plane, which is the plane in which all the planets orbit in, which is where all the robotic spacecraft are,” he said.
[Image from CanberraDSN Twitter account]
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