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This official NASA history document - converted for accurate flowing-text e-book format reproduction - provides a comprehensive, readable history of NASA's Deep Space Network (DSN), the network of antennas communicating with interplanetary probes including the eras of the Mariner, Viking, Voyager, Galileo, Cassini spacecraft. Contents: Genesis: 1957—1961; The Mariner Era: 1961—1974; The Viking Era: 1974—1978; The Voyager Era: 1977—1986; The Galileo Era: 1986—1996; The Cassini Era: 1996—1997; The Advance of Technology in the Deep Space Network; The Deep Space Network as a Scientific Instrument; The Deep Space Network as an Organization in Change.From the Foreword: "Without the remarkable improvement in performance of the DSN, scientific missions to the distant planets would have been impossible. In 1964, when Mariner IV flew past Mars and took a few photographs, the limitation of the communication link meant that it took eight hours to return to Earth a single photograph from the... space,nasa,viking,spaceflight,cassini,voyager,deep space network