ESA’s Solar Orbiter has made first contact with an ancient and mysterious world… Cornwall!

During recent tests, the spacecraft successfully sent telemetry to and received commands from ESA mission controllers at ESOC in Germany via a deep space antenna operated by Goonhilly Earth Station Ltd in Cornwall, UK.

The activity highlights the growing role of commercial ground stations in supporting deep space missions. While ESA’s global network of deep space antennas will continue to provide full-sky coverage for tracking and communicating with missions to distant planets, such as BepiColombo and Juice, Goonhilly offers valuable additional capacity.

ESA hopes to utilise the station to support its spacecraft when they are closer to Earth to optimise data downlink opportunities and free up highly sought after ESA capacity for missions further out in deep space.

The ESA/NASA Solar Orbiter spacecraft is on a mission to take the closest ever images of the Sun and study its mysterious and difficult to see polar regions. 

“As the number of missions beyond Earth’s orbit increases, we’re pleased to be expanding worldwide communications capacity with our commercial services,” said Goonhilly Earth Station CTO, Matthew Cosby. “It’s great to have feedback from customers like ESA that, by supporting missions like Solar Orbiter, we’re truly helping to boost the amount of precious scientific data being sent back from around our Solar System.”

“We are pleased to see Goonhilly being used in this way,” added Solar Orbiter flight controller Daniel Lakey. “It will allow us to manage communication more efficiently, particularly during busy periods, and opens up new possibilities for future missions.”

As ESA’s fleet grows and its spacecraft become more sophisticated and data-hungry, ground station bandwidth can quickly become a bottleneck. That is why ESA is expanding its own deep space network by constructing an additional antenna in Australia and supporting projects such as the upgrade to Goonhilly’s 32 m diameter dish to provide fast data links for missions beyond Earth orbit.

Goonhilly Earth Station's 32 m deep space antenna
Goonhilly Earth Station’s 32 m deep space antenna at sunset

Once known for broadcasting iconic events such as the Apollo Moon landings, Goonhilly is now playing an increasingly important role in space exploration. Its successful use by the Solar Orbiter mission demonstrates the potential for commercial deep space stations to complement space agency networks and is an example of how ESA can foster new business for European industry.

In addition to ESA missions, Goonhilly supports other agency and commercial partners around the world, such as the NASA-led Artemis programme, the Indian Chandrayaan-3 Moon mission and the Japanese lunar exploration company ispace.