http://www.newscientistspace.com/article/d...ce-network.html

Important data from multibillion-dollar space missions could be lost because a key communications antenna will be offline until early 2007.

NASA uses antennas at three sites around the world – in Spain, California and Australia – to be able to point at any given direction in space at any time. This Deep Space Network (DSN) is essential for receiving data sent back by all US interplanetary craft, including the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) and the Cassini spacecraft orbiting Saturn.

There must be a work around for this -- that data is priceless.

How tightly are the VLA, Parkes, and Usuda scheduled?

Any slack in their schedules could be parsed over to the DSN perhaps . . .

This is why redundancy is a good thing...