14 DAY TRIAL // Officials with the European Space Agency (ESA) announce that the Deep Space Antenna-1 (DSA-1) at their New Norcia listening and tracking station, in Australia, will be used to provide telemetry data to the Chinese National Space Administration (CNSA) as the latter prepares to land a probe on the Moon.
The New Norcia station is located around 140 kilometers (87 miles) north of Perth, in western Australia, close to the city of the same name. Its DSA-1 installation is a 35-meter (114-foot) parabolic antenna capable of picking up relatively faint signals from the solar system.
DSA-1 can establish communications with spacecraft located more than 2 million kilometers (1.24 million miles) away from Earth, making it ideally-suited for supporting the CNSA Chang'e-3 mission to the Moon. The endeavor consists of a lander and a small six-wheeled rover.
Chang'e-3, which bears the name of a Chinese lunar deity, is scheduled to make a soft landing inside Sinus Iridium, or the Bay of Rainbows, a basaltic lunar plain that is a favorite among astronomers. Touchdown is scheduled to occur on December 14, and ESA will be providing telemetry data throughout the event.