Wildfire forces evacuation of NASA’s Madrid Deep Space Network Complex

A fast-moving wildfire in central Spain forced NASA to evacuate the Madrid Deep Space Communications Complex (MDSCC) last week, temporarily displacing personnel from one of the three ground stations that make up the agency’s Deep Space Network (DSN). Operational control of the complex was transferred on July 24 to the Goldstone Deep Space Communications Complex in California, ensuring spacecraft communications continued without interruption.

Like another NASA facility on another continent just 18 months earlier, the fire ultimately stopped short of the complex. Initial reports indicate the site’s antennas and support buildings were spared, allowing NASA to begin planning for personnel to return once local authorities declared the area safe.

The Madrid complex is one of three DSN sites strategically located around the world, with the others at Goldstone in California’s Mojave Desert and Canberra, Australia. Together, they provide continuous communications with spacecraft exploring the solar system. Their locations, separated by roughly 120 degrees in longitude, ensure that as Earth rotates, at least one station remains in view of spacecraft throughout the solar system and beyond.

When the Deep Space Network first became operational, each site was staffed around the clock. Beginning in 2017, NASA transitioned to a follow-the-sun operating model, in which operational responsibility passes from California to Spain to Australia during local daytime hours. The change eliminated the need for continuous operations staffing at each complex while allowing engineers to remotely operate antennas at all three sites.

As the Madrid complex was evacuated, Goldstone assumed operational responsibility for the site before handing control to Canberra, allowing spacecraft communications to continue as needed .

This is not the first time the network had relied on this operational flexibility.

In January 2025, the Eaton Fire forced the evacuation of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, where the Deep Space Network is managed. JPL houses the Deep Space Network Operations Center, which coordinates tracking schedules and mission support across the global network. During the evacuation, the Operations Center was temporarily relocated to Goldstone for approximately one week until the immediate threat to the JPL campus had passed.

More than 200 JPL employees lost their homes in the Eaton Fire. NASA expressed hope for those affected by the wildfire in Spain as well. In the statement announcing the Madrid evacuation, the agency noted:

“NASA is also thinking of its partners at the European Space Agency (ESA), whose colleagues continue to be affected by the broader wildfire emergency.”