ESA’s ground station in New Norcia, in Western Australia, is home to two of ESA’s deep space antennas which support ESA’s flagship missions flown as part of the Agency’s scientific, exploration and space safety fleets, including Juice, Solar Orbiter, BepiColombo, Mars Express, Euclid, ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter and Hera, and later upcoming missions including Plato, Envision, and Vigil. Western Australia provides a strategic geographical position for around-the-clock coverage of deep space missions. It is a perfect complement to the sites in Malargüe (Argentina) and Cebreros (Spain).
Western Australia is also the location over which payloads launching from Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana, separate from their launcher. Located a few hundred meters from the deep space antennas, a smaller 4.5-metre one (located on left-hand side), tracks Vega-C and Ariane 6 launches and acquires critical telemetry used to monitor their status.
The station hosts a custom-built transponder antenna (located on right-hand side) to calibrate the measurements of ESA’s Biomass mission, launched in 2025.
The Estrack station at New Norcia, Western Australia, demonstrates ESA’s strong engagement in the Asia-Pacific region and especially Australia, part of the long-term cooperation between ESA and Australia in the space domain. It enables significant economic, technology and scientific benefits for both partners, and will pave the way for further collaboration in areas such as communications, space safety and mission operations.