Deep Space Station 23 at NASA's Goldstone complex near Barstow, California, has gone online. The recently completed facility is a 34-meter (114-foot) multifrequency beam-waveguide antenna. NASA published a photograph taken in August 2026 showing long shadows cast by the structure across the desert site where the dish now stands ready for work.
DSS-23 is designed to boost the Deep Space Network's capacity and enhance NASA's deep space communications capabilities for decades to come. The Deep Space Network links mission control on Earth with spacecraft exploring distant parts of the solar system, and each new large-aperture antenna adds bandwidth and redundancy to that global system.
Mission planners and space enthusiasts alike have reason to note this upgrade. With DSS-23 now online at Goldstone, NASA has additional receiving power available when probes need to send science data home — a practical improvement that will matter for current and future interplanetary missions relying on the network's three ground complexes.