Chinese Deep Space Stations: A brief review [Antenna Applications Corner]

To meet the rapidly growing needs of current and future deep space exploration missions, China has developed three deep space stations: Jiamusi and Kashi, (China), and Argentina (South America), for providing continuous telemetry, tracking, and command (TT&C), reliable communication, and precise navigation services. Integrated with state-of-the-art technologies, these three deep space stations are not only powerful for transmission but also extremely sensitive for receiving. Many remarkable innovations and achievements were made during the construction process, including the beam waveguide (BWG), adjustable subreflector, high-power transmitter, cryogenic low-noise amplifier (LNA), antenna-arraying technique, digital baseband receiver, and interferometry. This article briefly reviews the system architecture, general performance, critical system design issues, and contributions made by these Chinese deep space stations (CDSSs) during Chang’e missions.