Until 2002, ESA lacked its own means to communicate with spacecraft destined for other planets, or in very distant orbits, and depended on NASA's network of listeners to receive the data collected by them.

It has 250 temperature sensors distributed throughout the structure, so that it can auto-adjust automatically in case of expansion and contraction of the material due to meteorological changes.

Apart from its privileged situation, the choice fell on Cebreros because it has the necessary geographical coordinates (120 degrees east or west of the New Norcia station in Australia) and the lack of radioelectric interference produced by mobile telephony.

At first, the option of Villafranca del Castillo (Madrid) was considered, where ESA already has a Space Astronomy Center (ESAC), but it was discarded due to its accelerated urban development, which would have been, without a doubt, a safe source of interference.

It lasted a little over two years (it ended in August 2005, and since then it has been running on tests) .The construction was the responsibility of a consortium led by the companies SED Systems (Canada) and by Vertex Antennentechnik (Germany).

The station participates in missions as BepiColombo, Herschel, Planck, LISA Pathfinder, Gaia and Euclid space telescopes.