NASA's Goldstone Dish Outage Details... Confirmed.

In truth, we had been hearing whispered rumors of some outage, unplanned -- at Goldstone, California -- for a few weeks. The real-time monitoring site (available to the public) was showing no packet transmission or reception activity at Goldstone, just an “Antenna Unplanned Maintenance” blurb. [That continues through the moment I am writing this.]

For their part, the Jet Propulsion Labs folks at the NASA affiliate had said they would not comment on the Goldstone's status, citing NASA offices being dark during the government shutdown.

Anyhoo, here is that confirming story -- from SpaceNews (with no timetable yet for return to operational status listed):

. . .One of the largest antennas in NASA’s Deep Space Network was damaged in September and may be out of service for an extended period, further straining the system.

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory confirmed Nov. 10 that the 70-meter antenna at the Deep Space Network (DSN) site in Goldstone, California, has been offline since Sept. 16, with no timetable for its return to service.

“On Sept. 16, NASA’s large 70-meter radio frequency antenna at its Goldstone Deep Space Communications Complex near Barstow, California, over-rotated, causing stress on the cabling and piping in the center of the structure,” JPL said in a statement to SpaceNews. “Hoses from the antenna’s fire suppression system also were damaged, resulting in flooding that was quickly mitigated. . . .”

Onward, resolutely, just the same. And, the 70-meter antenna in Australia, DSS-43, is the only one capable of communicating with Voyager 2, now operating beyond the heliosphere -- past the outer reaches of our host solar system. There is no back-up to that, should it glitch. So, just FYI, the pic at right is of the new Australian dish -- acting as our general back-up at the moment (with kind grace, from ESA and the Aussies).

नमस्ते