Perth Station is an ESTRACK radio antenna station for communication with spacecraft. The station is located at the Perth International Telecommunications Centre in the suburb of Cullacabardee.
The site hosts a 15-metre diameter antenna that transmits in S-band and receives in both S- and X-bands. There were plans to upgrade to X-band transmission in 2004. There is also a GPS Tracking and Data Facility.
The facility is used to routinely communicate with the XMM-Newton spacecraft. It is also used during the Launch and Early Orbit Phase of various satellite launches.
The site has its own no-break power plant.
Famous quotes containing the words perth and/or station:
“To motorists bound to or from the Jersey shore, Perth Amboy consists of five traffic lights that sometimes tie up week-end traffic for miles. While cars creep along or come to a prolonged halt, drivers lean out to discuss with each other this red menace to freedom of the road.”
—For the State of New Jersey, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of natures God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.”
—Thomas Jefferson (17431826)