The famous landmark of the data link station is the antenna tower which is 30 metres high and is situated in the north of the Koppehaus. A parabolic antenna with a diameter of 3 metres can be moved in two axes and is installed on the upper platform. This installation is controlled by the data link station on the ground floor of the Koppehaus. During flight tests, research aircraft are equipped with transmitters sending a data stream on 2.4 GHz to the data link station which is - in addition to information transmission – also used for aircraft tracking. That is why the parabolic antenna is always aligned towards the aircraft and thus allows optimal data transmission. A second parabolic antenna of 2 metres is attached to the downlink receiving antenna pointing to the same direction. This so-called uplink antenna transmits a signal from the ground to the test aircraft. A bidirectional data connection is set up which allows an integration of the flying aircraft system into the computer network of the DLR site. Depending on the flight level the range of the data link is about 270 km, at a data rate of up to 4 Mbit/sec.