| Antenna | Spacecraft | Direction | Data Rate | Frequency | Power | Range |
|---|
The most distant human-made object. Crossed the heliopause into interstellar space in 2012. Still transmits engineering data on a ~22 W X-band signal received by the 70 m DSS-14 / DSS-43 / DSS-63 antennas.
The only spacecraft to fly by all four giant planets. Entered interstellar space in 2018. Communicates almost exclusively through Canberra's 70 m DSS-43 — the only DSN dish currently capable of uplinking commands to Voyager 2.
Located at Sun-Earth Lagrange point L2, ~1.5 million km away. Returns infrared science data over Ka-band at up to 28 Mbps — the largest data firehose handled by the DSN. Listens via S-band; downlinks via Ka.
NASA's astrobiology rover hunting for signs of ancient microbial life and caching samples for future return. Most data is relayed via Mars orbiters (MRO, MAVEN, TGO) and downlinked to Earth on X-band.
The plutonium-powered geology rover that has been climbing Mount Sharp since 2012, sniffing for organic molecules. Relays via Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and MAVEN; direct-to-Earth at low rates over X-band.
The fastest human-made object ever, designed to "touch the Sun." Repeatedly dives inside the corona, reaching ~6.9 million km from the Sun's surface. Data is downlinked between perihelions over X-band and Ka-band.
The Pluto flyby spacecraft, now exploring the Kuiper Belt. Famous for its 2015 Pluto encounter and 2019 flyby of Arrokoth (2014 MU69). Transmits at ~1 kbps from billions of km away — every byte takes hours to arrive.
NASA's flagship mission to Jupiter's icy moon Europa, arriving 2030. Will perform ~49 close flybys of Europa to assess habitability of its sub-surface ocean. Currently in cruise phase, communicating over X-band and Ka-band.
The Deep Space Network is built around three giant antenna complexes spaced roughly 120 degrees of longitude apart: Goldstone in California's Mojave Desert, Madrid in central Spain, and Canberra in Australia. As the Earth rotates, at least one complex always has line-of-sight to any spacecraft beyond Earth orbit. When one site loses a target over the horizon, another picks it up — a hand-off called AOS (acquisition of signal) and LOS (loss of signal).
Voyager 1's transmitter puts out roughly 22 watts — about the power of a refrigerator light bulb. By the time that signal reaches Earth, it has spread out across more than 24 billion kilometres of space. The power arriving at the antenna is on the order of 10⁻¹⁹ watts — a billionth of a billionth of a watt. To pull that whisper out of cosmic background noise, the DSN uses 70-metre dishes cooled with cryogenic amplifiers and decodes the signal at just ~160 bits per second — slower than a 1980s dial-up modem.
Communication with deep-space probes is asymmetric. A 20 kW uplink transmitter on Earth pushes commands out to the spacecraft on S-band or X-band. The spacecraft answers with a much weaker downlink on a slightly different frequency, which the antenna receives through the same dish. There is no real-time control: a Mars rover command can take 3 to 22 minutes one-way; a Voyager 1 acknowledgement takes more than 45 hours round-trip. This is why every command uplinked to a deep-space mission is essentially fire-and-forget — operators send a script and wait.
Different missions use different radio bands. S-band (~2 GHz) is reliable for command and emergency telemetry. X-band (~8 GHz) is the deep-space workhorse — most science data flows here. Ka-band (~32 GHz) offers the highest data rates and is used by JWST, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, and Psyche to push huge volumes of imagery and instrument data home, but it suffers more from rain and atmospheric absorption.
The panels at the top of this page pull directly from NASA's DSN Now feed. Every five seconds you see which dish is currently locked onto which spacecraft, what frequency is being used, the data rate, the uplink power level, and the round-trip light-time. When you watch DSS-14 in Goldstone or DSS-43 in Canberra come online with Voyager 1 or 2 in the target field, you are seeing one of humanity's longest-running phone calls happen in real time.
Live data feed: all signal, antenna and spacecraft information shown on this dashboard is fetched directly from NASA / JPL's public DSN Now feed at eyes.nasa.gov/dsn/data/dsn.xml. This is the same feed that powers NASA's own eyes.nasa.gov DSN Now visualisation.
Update cadence: the source feed refreshes roughly every 5 seconds and this page polls it on the same interval. Local times shown for each complex are computed in your browser from your device's clock.
Accuracy & caveats: the feed reflects what each antenna's controller reports — occasional gaps, "idle" periods, or apparently inactive dishes are normal during scheduling boundaries and maintenance. The distance and light-time values in the Featured Spacecraft cards above use the live downleg/RTLT values from the feed when available, falling back to recent published values otherwise. Voyager and New Horizons distances are recomputed on-page from approximate recession velocities and may drift from JPL HORIZONS by a few thousand km — for navigation-grade values consult ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/horizons.
Independent project: this dashboard is an unofficial, independent visualisation built by Jasper Bernaers. It is not affiliated with or endorsed by NASA or JPL. No data is collected from visitors and there are no ads or trackers beyond Google Analytics page-view counting.
NASA's Deep Space Network (DSN) is a collection of three antenna complexes spaced roughly 120° apart around Earth: Goldstone (California, USA), Madrid (Robledo de Chavela, Spain), and Canberra (Australia). This spacing ensures that any spacecraft beyond Earth orbit is always in view of at least one complex. The DSN communicates with every interplanetary mission — from the Voyagers at the edge of the solar system to rovers on Mars.
Uplink (orange) means the antenna is transmitting commands or data TO a spacecraft. Downlink (green) means it is receiving data FROM a spacecraft. Most active passes involve both simultaneously — the ground station sends instructions while receiving telemetry, science data, or navigation signals.
Data rate depends on distance and antenna size. The Voyager probes, over 24 billion km away, transmit at just ~160 bits per second — slower than a 1980s modem. Mars orbiters can manage megabits per second. The farther the spacecraft, the weaker the signal, and the slower the data must be sent to maintain accuracy.
Each complex has one 70-metre antenna (DSS-14 at Goldstone, DSS-43 at Canberra, DSS-63 at Madrid). These are the most sensitive dishes in the network and are reserved for the most distant or weakest signals — primarily the Voyager probes and spacecraft in the outer solar system. They can also be used for emergency communications with any mission.
The DSN Now feed updates approximately every 5 seconds. This dashboard fetches fresh data at the same interval. The data reflects the actual state of the antennas in near real-time — what you see is genuinely happening right now at the three complexes.
The data is sourced from NASA's official DSN Now feed, the same feed that powers the eyes.nasa.gov DSN Now visualization. It includes real-time dish status, spacecraft targets, signal strengths, data rates, frequencies, and antenna orientation for all three complexes.
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