A fast-moving wildfire in Spain has forced the evacuation of NASA’s Madrid Deep Space Communications Complex, temporarily suspending operations at one of the agency’s most critical tracking stations. The complex is part of NASA’s Deep Space Network (DSN), which operates in concert with similar facilities in California and Australia to provide global coverage as Earth’s rotation brings the planets, stars, and deep space probes in and out of view.
Located approximately 40 miles west of central Madrid, the facility was evacuated on Friday due to ongoing wildfires in the region. Photos and video from the area showed flames and smoke plumes rising over the ground station’s antenna array, anchored by a 230-foot-diameter radio dish and a collection of smaller antennas.
The DSN is managed by NASA’s Space Communications and Navigation (SCaN) program and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. NASA officials are monitoring wildfires in the Madrid region in coordination with local authorities and the US Embassy. “In the meantime, the agency has seamlessly transitioned support for mission operations to the Goldstone Deep Space Communications Complex in California, ensuring continuity of service and uninterrupted support for spacecraft communications,” a NASA spokesperson said.
The DSN typically runs using a ‘follow the Sun’ model, where control centers at each DSN site can remotely operate the entire network during local daytime hours. Antennas at each location operate around the clock. A NASA website providing status updates on each DSN complex showed no activity at the Madrid site on Friday afternoon, while antennas at the California and Australia locations were communicating with several NASA spacecraft.
The safety of personnel is NASA’s top priority, and the agency has expressed its thoughts for those affected by the wildfires in surrounding communities. “We will provide updates as conditions evolve,” a NASA spokesperson said.
A separate deep space tracking station owned and operated by the Spanish government and the European Space Agency was also evacuated due to wildfires, according to Spanish news reports. The Cebreros tracking station is located a few miles away from NASA’s DSN facility.
The Madrid location’s evacuation has left the Deep Space Network with only one operational 70-meter radio antenna in Australia. The 70-meter antenna in California has been offline since last year due to an accident that damaged cables and water lines, flooding the base of the antenna with 200,000 gallons of water containing glycol, an environmental hazard.
The incident is projected to cost between $4.1 million and $4.6 million for cleanup and repair. NASA officials are combining the repairs with already-planned upgrades. The work is expected to keep the antenna offline into 2028.
The good news for DSN is that the next Artemis mission to the Moon, Artemis III, is still at least a couple of years away. Artemis missions put high demand on DSN, with additional requirements for telemetry and imagery downlinks to support human spaceflight.
Source: Original article