The Santa Maria S-band station, also known as ‘Montes das Flores’ (Hill of Flowers), is located 5 km from the town of Vila do Porto on the Portuguese island of Santa Maria, in the Azores.

The station consists of a 5.5-m antenna hard-wired on a stable concrete platform and includes telecommunications equipment, a no-break power system, lightning protection and support infrastructure.

Santa Maria was one of the first Estrack stations with launcher tracking capability and is ideally located to acquire signals from launchers climbing up toward the North-East from ESA’s spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana.