ESA's new tracking station in Malargüe, Argentina, will be formally inaugurated on 18 December 2012 and enter service early in 2013. The massive, 35 m-diameter antenna enables receipt of precious scientific data from current and future missions voyaging hundreds of millions of kilometres into our Solar System.<br />Inauguration of Malargüe also marks the completion of the Agency's trio of deep-space antenna (DSA) stations as part of the ESTRACK network and confirms ESA as one of the world's most technologically advanced space organisations.<br />The station is located in Malargüe, Argentina, 1200 km west of Buenos Aires. Joining DSA 1, New Norcia, Australia, and DSA 2, Cebreros, Spain, DSA 3 Malargüe provides the final leg in ESA's 360° circumferential coverage for deep-space probes including, today, Mars Express, Venus Express, Rosetta, Herschel and Planck, and, in the future, Gaia, BepiColombo, ExoMars, Solar Orbiter and Juice.<br />The foreboding beauty of the landscape near Malargüe, 1500m high in clear mountain air, is also famous for the 1972 Andes flight disaster, dramatised in the 1993 film "Alive: The Miracle of the Andes." The actual crash site in the mountains is approximately 138.4 km, as the crow flies, from ESA's station.
