NASA is working to add three new antenna dishes to its Near Space Network, which works to provide communication services for space exploration missions, including the Artemis missions to the moon.
The new antennas, called Lunar Exploration Ground Sites, or LEGS, will be placed at three locations across the globe to ensure that the moon is always in sight of one dish, thereby ensuring continuous lunar communication coverage, NASA said Monday.
The three new antennas — dubbed LEGS-1, LEGS-2 and LEGS-3 — will each be 66 feet in diameter and possess the capability to communicate using the X-band and the Ka-band.
LEGS-1 will be installed at NASA’s White Sands Complex in Las Cruces, New Mexico, while LEGS-2 will be installed at a location near Cape Town, South Africa, called Matjiesfontein. The latter is expected to be completed by 2026.
As for LEGS-3, possible locations are still being explored in Western Australia.
TJ Crooks, LEGS project manager at the Goddard Space Flight Center, explained that one of the objectives of the new antennas is to relieve the Deep Space Network of its lunar mission duties. The Deep Space Network and the Near Space Network operated in tandem to support Artemis I and will do so again for Artemis II.
“The Near Space Network and its new LEGS antennas will focus on lunar missions while allowing the Deep Space Network to support missions farther out into the solar system — like the James Webb Space Telescope and the interstellar Voyager missions,” Crooks said.