Goonhilly Satellite Earth Station

Coordinates: 50°02′53″N 5°10′55″W / 50.048055555556°N 5.1819444444444°W / 50.048055555556; -5.1819444444444
Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Goonhilly Satellite Earth Station
"Merlin", the site's largest dish
LocationGoonhilly Downs, Mawgan-in-Meneage, St Martin-in-Meneage, Cury, United Kingdom Edit this at Wikidata
Coordinates50°02′53″N 5°10′55″W / 50.048055555556°N 5.1819444444444°W / 50.048055555556; -5.1819444444444
Websitewww.goonhilly.org Edit this at Wikidata
Telescopes
  • Goonhilly Antenna No. 1
  • Goonhilly Antenna No. 2
  • Goonhilly Antenna No. 3
  • Goonhilly Antenna No. 6 Edit this on Wikidata
Goonhilly Satellite Earth Station is located in the United Kingdom
Goonhilly Satellite Earth Station
Location of Goonhilly Satellite Earth Station
  Related media on Commons

Goonhilly Satellite Earth Station is a large

undersea cable lines
.

History

Its first dish, Antenna One (dubbed "Arthur"), was built in 1962 to link with

listed structure
and is therefore protected.

The site has also played a key role in communications events such as the Muhammad Ali fights, the Olympic Games, the Apollo 11 Moon landing, and 1985's Live Aid concert.[2]

Statistics

The site's largest dish, dubbed "Merlin", has a diameter of 32 metres (105 feet). Other dishes include Guinevere, Tristan, and Isolde after characters in Arthurian legend, much of which takes place in Cornwall.

The earth station is powered by the

wind generator
farm is not part of the complex.

Closure

On 12 September 2006, BT announced it would shut down satellite operations at Goonhilly in 2008, and move them to Madley Communications Centre in Herefordshire, making that centre BT's only earth station.[3]

Visitor centre

Until Easter 2010 the site had a visitor centre inside which the

cybercafés
(a one gigabit pipe and a theoretical maximum speed per computer of 100 Mbit). There were also tours around the main BT site and into the heart of Arthur.

At its prime, the site attracted around 80,000 visitors a year, but in March 2010 BT announced that the visitor centre would be "Closed for Easter and beyond, until further notice."[4]

Development to Commercial Deep Space Communication

On 11 January 2011 it was announced that part of the site was to be sold to create a space science centre.[5] This would involve upgrading some of the dishes to make them suitable for deep space communication with spacecraft missions. A new company was formed to manage the operations, Goonhilly Earth Station Ltd.[6] The company leased most of the antennas for at least three years with the option to buy the entire complex in the future. Goonhilly Earth Station Ltd. took ownership of the site in January 2014.

There are plans to connect one or more of the Goonhilly dishes into global radio astronomy interferometer networks.[7][8]

There are also plans to upgrade the former visitor centre into "an outreach centre promoting space and space science for visitors, including local residents and schools".[5]

In July 2015

CCSDS and now can enhance NASA's Deep-Space-Network or ESA's ESTRACK
network. The services are offered to NASA, ESA, JAXA, ASI, CNES, CSA, DLR and UKSA.

The site is a partner in the bid by Newquay Airport to become the UK's first Spaceport.

Support for Moon exploration

In April 2018, Goonhilly became part of a collaboration partnership for commercial

Lunar Pathfinder mission. Plans exist for small landers with a lunar mothership providing communications relay.[10]

On 22 February 2024 the station served as the Earth station for the Intuitive Machines IM-1 spacecraft as it landed on the Moon. The first American spacecraft to do so since the Apollo 17 mission in 1972.

Gallery

  • Rear view of "Arthur"
    Rear view of "Arthur"
  • Side view of "Arthur"
    Side view of "Arthur"
  • Front view of "Arthur"
    Front view of "Arthur"

References

  1. ^ Goonhilly Earth Station Ltd
  2. ^ "Goonhilly in Cornwall takes off on space missions". BBC News. 11 March 2015. Retrieved 9 August 2015.
  3. ^ "Goonhilly Downs, Helston, Cornwall, England, UK Goonhilly Satellite Earth Station". thelivingmoon.com. Retrieved 9 August 2015.
  4. ^ "Goonhilly satellite station visitor centre closes". BBC News. 11 March 2010. Retrieved 9 August 2015.
  5. ^ a b "Goonhilly at 'forefront of space exploration'". BBC News. Cornwall. 11 January 2011. Retrieved 9 August 2015.
  6. ^ "GES Ltd". Retrieved 9 August 2015.
  7. ].
  8. ].
  9. ^ "Goonhilly Earth Station hoping for new lease of life". SES. 16 July 2015. Retrieved 9 August 2015.
  10. ^ SSTL and Goonhilly Earth Station Sign Collaboration Agreement with ESA for Commercial Lunar Missions, MoonDaily.com, 2018-04-19

External links