NASA officials have completed an investigation into an incident that caused significant damage to one of the Deep Space Network’s (DSN) largest antennas, finding that operators were overworked beyond their usual roles to keep the facility running.
Accident Investigation Board Issued Its final report on the incident blamed software vulnerabilities, human error, and undocumented failures for the incident. The 230-foot-wide radio antenna remains offline while NASA works on repairs, which the agency estimates will cost between $4.1 million and $4.6 million.
“We are committed to learning everything we can from this accident, and we have already begun to put those lessons into action,” Kevin Coggins, deputy associate administrator for NASA’s SCaN (Communications and Astronautics) program, said in a statement.
Here’s what happened
On September 16, 2025, The DSS-14 antenna went dark After over-rotating and then stressing the cables and tubes at their centre. Hoses from the antenna’s fire suppression system were also damaged, resulting in flooding and water damage.
DSS-14, located at the Goldstone Deep Space Communications Complex near Barstow, California, is essential for sending commands and receiving data from ongoing missions in deep space.
At the time, NASA did not share much information about the cause of the accident, but the latest report reveals new details about the accident. The radio-frequency antenna was tracking the Juno mission, an orbiting probe that has been studying Jupiter for the past decade, when it overrotated and put excessive stress on the cables and associated structural supports.
Investigators later discovered that an electrical problem the previous day had caused the control system to incorrectly report the antenna’s rotation status. The problem went unnoticed and caused multiple pauses while the antenna was tracking Juno. Operators were on site trying to determine what caused the cap to stop and performed several troubleshooting steps that inadvertently bypassed software and hardware warranties. This eventually led to over-rotation of the antenna.
Once operators noticed flooding at the facility, they attempted to store the antenna as a safety precaution. The system had already exceeded its rotation limits, so their attempt increased the antenna’s rotation even further and caused additional damage.
The investigation also found that the antenna’s hydraulic limiting system, its last mechanical safeguard, was inoperable that day after being damaged in an earlier, undocumented accident. The hydraulic limit system was not adequately tested for an indefinite period of time, according to the report.
“NASA takes safety and any departure from established procedures very seriously, and the Goldstone investigation made clear that we must strengthen our operations,” Joel Montalbano, acting associate administrator for NASA’s Space Operations Mission Directorate, said in a statement. “We will modernize and improve procedures, rebuild core internal capabilities, and strengthen operational discipline across the Deep Space Network.”
A deeper issue
NASA relies on DSN, which is A set of giant radio antennas They are spread out in different parts of the world, to communicate with their spacecraft. The network consists of three deep space communications facilities located in Goldstone in the Mojave Desert in California, another near Madrid, Spain, and a third near Canberra, Australia.
The sites are strategically placed approximately 120 degrees apart to ensure that at any given time one or more of these facilities can communicate with a spacecraft as the Earth rotates 360 degrees around its axis.
DSN was first established in 1963 and is currently fully operational. A 2023 a report NASA’s Office of Inspector General revealed that demand for DSN radio antennas exceeds supply by as much as 40% at times. This means that spacecraft require more time than the current network capacity can provide.
Demand for DSN is also expected to increase significantly over the next decade, exceeding its capacity by 50% by the 2030s, according to the report. A major factor contributing to the increased demand is NASA’s Artemis program, which plans to land a crew of astronauts on the moon by 2028.
The recent investigation into the DSS-14 accident revealed some fundamental problems at the facility. “Investigators also concluded that workplace culture pressures operators to work as quickly as possible, often beyond their usual roles, experience and training, to keep the antenna working,” according to NASA. “Other contributing factors described in the report include inadequate procedures, reliance on undocumented practices and tacit knowledge, and gaps in antenna control logic.”
NASA estimates that antenna repairs, as well as maintenance and upgrades, will be completed by October 2028. “Our teams are working to enhance and standardize operations and training across the three network sites to ensure they remain flexible, consistent and ready to support the next generation of missions,” Coggins said. “Every challenge is an opportunity to improve, and this is no exception.”
