A need arose for an international network of tracking stations around the globe to communicate with satellites and crewed space capsules and to control their flight trajectory.

On 18 March 1960, the Spanish and US Governments signed an agreement to establish a NASA satellite ground station on Gran Canaria, the first in Spain.

It was initially set to provide support for NASA's first human spaceflight mission, the Mercury Program, one of 14 such stations in the Manned Space Flight Network (MSFN) distributed around the globe.

Subsequently, Maspalomas participated in the ground control network for NASA's crewed flight programme Project Gemini (1965-1966).

[1] The expansion of tourism in the southern part of Gran Canaria threatened the radio quiet zone around Maspalomas station.

[10] Maspalomas has also supported other international space projects, among them missions for the European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT) and for the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) (including the ETS-VII rendezvous mission); South Korea's Kompsat-2; and the International Satellite System For Search and Rescue, COSPAS-SARSAT.