Challenger Outward Bound Centre/Deep Space Station, Ascension Island (DSS 72)

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The facilities were formerly occupied by Deep Space Station, Ascension Island. It was left to the 1st Ascension Island Scout Group when NASA abandoned the station in 1990.

The site was constructed from 1965 to 1966. The original purpose of constructing this station was to support the early Surveyor missions, whose Atlas-Centaur launch vehicles would produce a direct-ascent trajectory to the Moon, rather than insertion from a parking orbit. Translunar injection would therefore occur before the spacecraft was visible to either the Johannesburg station or the stations in Spain. Consequently, a station nearer to the launch site than these facilities was needed to obtain during this phase positional data vital to trajectory determination and midcourse corrections.

Deep space and Apollo missions were separately monitored by two 9-meter, az-el-mounted antennas with high angular-tracking rates. The deep-space antenna (on the right in the photo) had a nominal communications range of 60,300 kilometers (37,500 miles). This station was funded by the U.S. State Department.

www.scouts.org.ac/oldsite/
deepspace.jpl.nasa.gov/dsn/history/dsn41.html
www.honeysucklecreek.net/other_stations/ascension/index...