Leadership from NASA Headquarters, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the Deep Space Network gathered at the Goldstone complex near Barstow, California, on Aug. 25, 2026, for a ceremonial ribbon cutting in front of the recently completed Deep Space Station 23 antenna, according to a NASA Photojournal image addition dated Aug. 25, 2026.

DSS-23 is the latest antenna added under the DSN's Aperture Enhancement Project, which the agency says began in 2009 to upgrade and expand the network by adding six new 34-meter (114-foot) multifrequency beam-waveguide antennas. NASA describes these dishes as versatile, able to support many missions operating over different radio frequencies. The DSN lets missions track spacecraft, send them commands and receive scientific data from far away.

Among those shown in the photo are Germaine Aziz, Bradford Arnold, Keyur Patel, Wanda Peters, Jimmy Kenyon, John McCullough, Gregory Heckler, William Marinelli, Michael Levesque and Frank Kaufholod. The DSN is managed by JPL, a division of Caltech in Southern California, for the Space Communications and Navigation program at NASA Headquarters.