Spanish forest fires threaten NASA space communications station

Theo New ScientistNASA sends commands and receives data from spacecraft flying beyond Earth’s orbit through the Deep Space Network (DSN), which includes three giant radio antenna clusters located in the US, Spain and Australia. A large forest fire has engulfed the area around radio dishes in Spain, and authorities are unclear about the extent of damage to the facility.

Forest fires have broken out across Europe over the past month due to the effects of heat and severe drought. Spain declared a state of emergency due to forest fires as multiple fires broke out of control near Madrid and issued an evacuation order for 60,000 people. On July 24, a fire intensified and spread to the Madrid Deep Space Communications Complex (MDSCC) in the town of Robledo de Chavela. Isabel Díaz Ayuso, president of the Madrid regional government, said it was “the worst fire in the region’s history”.

According to NASA’s announcement, all employees at MDSCC promptly evacuated to a safe place, but there has been no assessment of damage to the antenna cluster. MDSCC has one 70 m antenna and five 34 m antennas used to communicate with NASA spacecraft in the solar system.

The impact of forest fires on radio dishes in Spain could have serious consequences for NASA. The DSN is inherently overloaded, slowing down the process of sending commands to the spacecraft and receiving data transmitted to Earth. If a dish fails to function, this problem could become more serious, especially in a situation where the US is accelerating the progress of the Artemis lunar exploration program. If the overload becomes severe, it is possible that some data will not be able to be sent back to Earth.

The other problem comes from DSN’s three-station layout. According to researcher Paul Byrne at the University of Washington in Missouri, the stations are designed with a range of one-third of the sky, so that at any given time two stations can be used to track and communicate with spacecraft flying beyond Earth’s orbit. Due to angle problems, there will be times during the day when some spacecraft are obscured and unable to receive communications from the ground, including the Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft duo.

Now, NASA is turning to the Goldstone Deep Space Communications Complex in California to ensure uninterrupted communications with spacecraft. However, this is only a temporary solution.

According to NASA, the facility in Spain, along with two other facilities in Canberra, Australia, and Goldstone, California, form the largest and most sensitive scientific telecommunications system in the world. The network allows NASA to transmit information from Earth to spacecraft, including the most distant man-made object in the solar system, Voyager 1. The network is also used to transmit data from the James Webb Space Telescope, contributing to radio astronomy observations.

Spain is not the only country facing a forest fire disaster. Fires also broke out of control in France. About 200,000 people in the two countries have been asked to evacuate.

Europe recorded record high temperatures this summer due to the heat dome phenomenon and climate change. Hot weather can dry out vegetation, making forests more susceptible to fire when exposed to sparks. Rising temperatures expected this week could worsen fires raging in Spain and France, and spark new ones.