successful handover to #DSN, w00t! 🎉

🌏📡~~~~~~~~🚀 - - - - - 🌖

#NASA
#ArtemisII
#Artemis  

you can see what’s happening on the #DSN Now website, part of #NASA’s #EyesOn visualisation tools

https://eyes.nasa.gov/apps/dsn-now/dsn.html

antennas showing “ART2” are currently in direct comms with #ArtemisII & antennas showing “DSN” are mostly^ tasked to #Artemis mission support but not currently communicating with the spacecraft

– antennas with “squiggly lines” going in both directions are both transmitting & receiving data (Tx & Rx)

– antennas with a squiggly line going in one direction is currently either transmitting or receiving data

– antennas with a sine wave line have carrier lock but aren’t transmitting or receiving (not shown)

– details about the comms for the selected antenna are shown in the panel at the bottom of the page

you can see in the attached pic that antennas DSS-54 & DSS-56 at #MDSCC (the Madrid Deep Space Communication Complex) are currently communicating with ArtemisII – 54 is both Tx & Rx on S-band & 56 is Rx on S-band and data rates look great
 
 
 
^ I say “mostly” ‘coz “DSN” usually means testing or maintaining – one or two antennas may be undergoing maintenance atm rather than supporting ArtemisII, I don’t have complete visibility of the antenna schedule 💁‍♀️

note: #DSN uses a “follow the sun” approach for operating antennas, so the antennas at #MDSCC in #Madrid are currently being operated by the ops team at #CDSCC in #Canberra since it’s day time here in #Aus & night time in Spain 🙃

normally there’s only a skeleton maintenance crew on site at the Deep Space Communication Complexes overnight but I expect there are some additional staff on site (or on call) just in case for such important mission support