Goldstone Deep Space Communications Complex is NASA’s deep-space radio communications facility in the Mojave Desert at Fort Irwin, California, operated by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory as one of three Deep Space Network stations with sites near Madrid and Canberra. Established in 1958 for the Pioneer program, it was placed in a bowl-shaped desert location to reduce terrestrial radio interference and detect extremely weak signals from distant spacecraft. Its large dish antennas receive faint microwave-band transmissions and send commands back into space. The complex also pioneered deep-space radio astronomy, and its first antenna, DSS 11, later became a National Historic Landmark.