Parkes telescope to track Mars spacecraft in 2003 - 2004

Four NASA spacecraft and spacecraft from Japan and Europe are planned to be in operation at Mars in early 2004. In addition to the three tracking stations of NASA's Deep Space Network, located in Australia (which CSIRO oversees on behalf of NASA), Spain, and the USA, NASA has enlisted the 64-m Parkes dish of the ATNF to help track these spacecraft during the busy period, November 2003 to February 2004.

NASA's Mars Global Surveyor and Mars Odyssey probes are already orbiting the planet. Four more missions will arrive in 2003 - 2004. NASA's two robotic Mars Exploration Rovers will be looking for evidence of liquid water and analysing rocks and soil. Nozomi, Japan's first Mars probe, will be studying the upper atmosphere and Europe's Mars Express will map surface and subsurface structures. It will drop a British lander, Beagle 2, which will search for signs of water and life.

As part of the ATNF participation in the NASA program, the Parkes telescope will be upgraded, paid for by NASA funds. Some of the wire mesh panels in the outer part of the dish will be replaced with panels of perforated aluminium sheet, to enlarge the smooth part of dish's surface. This will make the dish more sensitive at 8.4 GHz, the frequency at which the spacecraft will downlink. A sensitive new 8.4-GHz receiver will be constructed and installed on the telescope as part of the upgrade. The surface upgrade and the new receiver will double the sensitivity of the telescope at this frequency. The 64-m Parkes telescope has tracked NASA spacecraft from the 1960s through to the 1990s. Its most prominent role, celebrated in the film "The Dish", was supporting the 1969 Apollo 11 Moon landing.

Steven Tingay
(Steven.Tingay@csiro.au)