CSIRO staff with the receiver they built to track NASA's Galileo spacecraft.

CSIRO and NASA: four decades of collaboration

CSIRO’s relationship with NASA began in the early 1960s, and has involved both spacecraft tracking and equipment contracts.

• 1 December 2009 | Updated 14 October 2011

• Spacecraft tracking 
• Mutual benefits 

Spacecraft tracking

CSIRO manages the Canberra Deep Space Communications Complex, one of three stations around the world used for communicating with NASA’s spacecraft, under contract to NASA.

Since the early 1960s NASA has also contracted CSIRO radio telescopes to augment its network of tracking stations for particular missions.

The first such occasion occurred in 1962, when CSIRO’s 64 metre Parkes, New South Wales (NSW), Australia, telescope was used to receive signals from the Mariner II spacecraft. It was used again in 1965 to track Mariner IV.

Parkes’ most prominent contribution to NASA’s missions came in 1969, when it was used to receive television signals from the Apollo 11 Moon landing and relay them to a worldwide audience of 600 million.

Parkes was also a prime receiving station for the Apollo 12, 14, 15 and 17 missions, and was called in to help during the Apollo 13 emergency.

In 1986 and 1989 Parkes was a receiving station for the Voyager II spacecraft, for flybys of Uranus and Neptune respectively.

In 1996-97 Parkes tracked NASA’s Galileo spacecraft around Jupiter, and in 2003-4 it tracked several spacecraft around Mars.

More recently, NASA has contracted with CSIRO to use the Australia Telescope Compact Array near Narrabri NSW to track future space missions.

NASA has contributed to changes to CSIRO's telescopes that benefit both space tracking and astronomy.

Mutual benefits

Using CSIRO radio telescopes under contract allows NASA to augment its Deep Space Network at times of high demand.

NASA has contributed to modifications to both the Parkes telescope and the Compact Array that are both necessary for the tracking projects and valuable to astronomers using the telescopes for other purposes.

For instance, to allow the Galileo spacecraft to be tracked, the Parkes telescope’s focus cabin, which houses its receiving equipment, was replaced with one that allowed quick changes between equipment used for tracking and that used for astronomy.

For the tracking of spacecraft around Mars, wire mesh panels in the outer part of the Parkes dish were replaced with more even ones of perforated aluminium sheet. This made the dish more sensitive to signals from the spacecraft.

Similarly, NASA has contributed to modifications to the Australia Telescope Compact Array that have made it only the second telescope in the world able to operate at radio wavelengths around 7 millimetres.

This change was necessary for tracking future space missions, but it also allows astronomers to pursue exciting scientific questions, such as tracing the history of star formation in the Universe.

NASA is an exacting customer for CSIRO’s skills in the area of receiver design, thus helping to develop those skills.

Several of the tracking contracts have required CSIRO to build new receiving equipment as part of the package of modifications needed.

Learn more about CSIRO Astronomy and Space Science.