page_title: Maspalomas Station
section_title: Later missions
hierarchical_section_title: Maspalomas Station / History / Later missions
caption_attribution_description: English: Locations of ESTRACK stations on a world map
context_page_description: Maspalomas Station is an INTA-operated, ESTRACK radio antenna ground station for communication with spacecraft located at the southern area of Gran Canaria island, on the INTA campus. It is situated on the Montaña Blanca hill and is visible from the coastal resort of Meloneras, close to Maspalomas. It was originally established in the 1960s to support NASA's nascent human spaceflight program.
context_section_description: After the Apollo Missions, Maspalomas supported a number of other important NASA projects, including the monitoring of the Apollo Lunar Surface Experiments Package (ALSEP), a set of scientific instruments left by astronauts at the various Apollo landing sites, and the Skylab missions. In 1975, after the end of the Skylab 4 and the Apollo–Soyuz missions, NASA decommissioned Maspalomas Station and most of the functions were transferred to Madrid.  Equipment from Maspalomas Station was sent over to the NASA station at Tananarive, on Madagascar (part of the Spacecraft Tracking and Data Acquisition Network).
  In the late 1970s and early 1980s, ESA began to expand operations in Spain, establishing the Villafranca Station in 1978. Maspalomas Station was reopened in 1979 by the Comisión Nacional de Investigación del Espacio and INTA to provide services for ESA and NASDA and for programmes such as Hispasat, Helios and the International Cospas-Sarsat Programme.
caption: map of ESTRACK ground stations
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