The Committee to Nuke Elysium

NASA’s Deep Space Network (DSN) is in the process of being renovated, and not a moment too soon. One of the network’s ageing radio dishes stopped in its tracks last month, resulting in the loss of important data from the Cassini spacecraft.

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Meanwhile, the dishes’ electronics are being upgraded to enable them to receive higher frequencies, which allow spacecraft to transmit data at increased rates. DSN programme manager Michael Rodrigues of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, says he is confident that the network will be ready for the James Webb Space Telescope, designed to transmit data at up to 125 megabits per second when it begins operation in 2014.