ESTRACK

The stations support various ESA spacecraft and facilitate communications between ground operators and scientific probes such as XMM-Newton, Mars Express, BepiColombo, Gaia.

Similar networks are run by the USA, China, Russia, Japan, and India.

The Core ESTRACK network is composed of seven ESA-owned ground stations.

[9] The most relevant operators include KSAT, SSC and Goonhilly Satellite Earth Station.

Some of these are Deep Space Stations and therefore can offer services that are not be provided by commercial operators.