Overview
- All personnel at the Madrid Deep Space Communications Complex were evacuated and reported safe after fast‑moving wildfires threatened the Robledo de Chavela site.
- NASA shifted mission support to its Goldstone complex in California to preserve spacecraft links while Madrid remains offline and inaccessible for safety reasons.
- With Madrid out of service and Goldstone's 70‑meter antenna already offline from a 2025 over‑rotation accident, the Canberra station is now the only operational 70‑meter dish for the Deep Space Network.
- Any damage at the Madrid facility will be assessed only when it is safe to return, and social media imagery showed smoke and flames close to the tracking dishes during the evacuation.
- Spanish authorities deployed thousands of firefighters and ordered large civilian evacuations that also forced nearby ESA/Spanish tracking station Cebreros to evacuate, highlighting how terrestrial hazards can constrain the DSN and risk service impacts for dozens of missions.