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Last Friday's ADAP showed a camel in front of an ASKAP antenna,
and today's continues the theme of antennas and animals with an
archival image of the Canberra Deep Space Communication Complex
station at Tidbinbilla and local "wildlife".
The antennas, from left to right, are DSS-45 (34m), DSS-43 (70m), DSS-34 (34m), and DSS-46 (26m).
The age of the image can be gauged from the fact that DSS-46, shown in use, was retired
from service in December 2009.
The history of DSS-46 is given
on this CDSCC webpage: briefly,
it was constructed in 1965 at the Honeysuckle Creek Tracking Station
for the Apollo missions and on 21 July 1969 received and relayed to the
world the first television images of Neil Armstrong's first steps on the Moon.
In 1983 the antenna was moved to Tidbinbilla and modified to expand its
capabilities to track spacecraft soon after their launch.
(Image credit:
CDSCC image gallery)
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