Operated by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), its main purpose is to track and communicate with interplanetary space missions.

[6] The complex includes the Pioneer Deep Space Station (aka DSS 11), which is a U.S. National Historic Landmark.

Five large parabolic (dish) antennas are located at the Goldstone site to handle the workload, since at any given time the DSN is responsible for maintaining communication with up to 30 spacecraft.

The largest, a 70-meter (230 ft) Cassegrain antenna, is used for communication with space missions to the outer planets, such as the Voyager spacecraft, which, at 21.5 billion kilometers, is the most distant manmade object from Earth.

[8] The Goldstone complex was created in 1958 by the JPL to support the Pioneer program of deep space exploration probes.

Construction of the first radio telescope, DSS 11 or the Pioneer Deep Space Station, was begun by the United States Army and taken over by NASA after its creation.

[13] Probably this detection of the Explorer 1 signal was actually made at the Minitrack station at Brown Field, a US Navy airfield near San Diego.