Uplink-Downlink: A History of the Deep Space Network, 1957-1997

From the very beginning of its association with NASA in 1958, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory UPL) received its fair share of public recognition for its successes and failures in pursuing the exploration of deep space. It started with the Explorers, the first American satellites to orbit Earth. Later there came the Rangers, the first spacecraft to reach the surface of the Moon; the Mariner spacecraft, first to visit Venus and Mars; and the Voyagers that pushed the boundaries of deep space com...