DSN needs more bandwidth to handle everything they want to throw at it, but isn’t getting the budget
a collection of antennas in California, Spain, and Australia used to maintain contact with missions scattered
If other nations are involved and have a vested interest is NASA paying for all of it?
These aren’t other nations deciding to put antennas there and link up. This is a branch of the American government buying a plot of land in allied countries and putting their transceivers there. Australia and Spain don’t get a say in the network (and, of course, have to adapt their national frequency plans to the American DSN system to prevent interference).
The DSN does work together with agencies like ESA in certain cases, but it’s an American operation managed by Americans for American science. These radios are in other countries because the North American continent doesn’t span around the whole world, and you really want worldwide coverage for these types of space missions.
I understand all of the logistics for needing them around the globe. So they purchase the land? I’d have guessed a lease. Surprising the host nations aren’t helping with costs or anything.
Why would they? They aren’t using the infrastructure
Whenever a space agency affiliated with NASA needs to use the DSN for one of their missions, NASA accommodates and grants usage of it. And obviously, the mission agency pays for this usage out of their own mission budget. This goes the other way around as well. Since 2007, the DSN is closely partnered with ESTRACK, which is ESA’s antenna network. There also are cooperations with JAXA and ISRO ( Japan and India). Sometimes their networks can help fill coverage gaps or offer better bandwidths. Global cooperation really has its benefits.
