Equipment failures in NASA‘s Deep Space Network have disrupted spacecraft communications and stalled near-Earth asteroid studies for nearly two months.
As the federal government remains shut down, engineers are racing to restore the space agency’s historic 230-foot-wide radio dish near Barstow, Calif. The massive dish, about the size of a Boeing 747 jet, broke down on Sept. 16.
Known since 1966 as the Mars Antenna for receiving the first signals from a spacecraft closely observing the Red Planet, the giant dish over-rotated during operations, straining cables and pipes at its center. Damaged hoses from the fire suppression system also caused flooding, though the water damage was quickly abated, according to NASA in a statement to Mashable.
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