Workers at the Deep Space Network complex in Goldstone, Calif., prepared to replace a set of elevation bearings on the giant "Mars antenna" on March 11, 2010. The work on the elevation bearings, which enable the antenna to tip up from the horizon and back down again, was part of a major refurbishment of the Mars antenna that lasted from March to October 2010.

The 70-meter-wide (230-foot-wide) Mars antenna got its nickname from its first task: tracking the Mariner 4 spacecraft after its historic flyby of Mars in 1966. The antenna's official name is Deep Space Station 14.

JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Deep Space Network for NASA Headquarters, Washington. More information about the Deep Space Network is online at http://deepspace.jpl.nasa.gov/dsn/index.html.