Santa Maria Island Station (also known as SMA or Montes das Flores, Hill of Flowers) is an ESTRACK satellite ground station in the Azores, 5 kilometres (3.1 mi) from the town of Vila do Porto on the island of Santa Maria.
[1] It covers a large portion of the Atlantic Ocean and during the Ariane 5 launches, it acquires signals until the upper stage engine cut-off.
[2] Construction of the station was completed in January 2008 under Ariane Development Programme in an agreement between ESA and the Portuguese government.
A reason for building an additional station was tracking of the medium inclination Ariane 5 launches and upcoming Vega along with Soyuz from Guiana Space Centre.
The first launch tracked by the newly built site was Ariane 5 ES flight V-181 lifting Automated Transfer Vehicle Jules Verne in March 2008.