Santa Maria Island Station

Santa Maria Island Station (also known as SMA or Montes das Flores, Hill of Flowers) is an ESTRACK satellite ground station in the Azores, 5 km from the town of Vila do Porto on the island of Santa Maria.

Station currently operates a 5.5m S-band antenna capable of receiving signals in the 2200-2300 MHz range, the first one in the ESTRACK network with launch tracking capability. It covers a large portion of the Atlantic Ocean and during the Ariane 5 launches, it acquires signals until the upper stage engine cut-off. Future upgrades for SMA will include an X-band antenna working in the range of 8025-8400 MHz.

Construction of the station was completed in January 2008 under Ariane Development Programme in an agreement between ESA and the Portuguese government. A reason for building an additional station was tracking of the medium inclination Ariane 5 launches and upcoming Vega along with Soyuz from Guiana Space Centre. The first launch tracked by the newly built site was Ariane 5 ES flight V-181 lifting Automated Transfer Vehicle Jules Verne in March 2008.

When not used for launch tracking station is used in CleanSeaNet and MARISS service for Copernicus Programme