History of the Deep Space Network

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The forerunner of the Deep Space Network was established in January 1958, when JPL, then under contract to the U.S. Army, deployed portable radio tracking stations in Nigeria, Singapore, and California to receive telemetry and plot the orbit of the Army-launched Explorer 1, the first successful U.S. satellite.

NASA (and the DSN by extension) was officially established on October 1, 1958, to consolidate the separately developing space-exploration programs of the U.S. Army, U.S. Navy, and U.S. Air Force into one civilian organization.