Amateur radio operators and more will track NASA’s Artemis 1 moon mission

Amateur radio operators will join a powerful international network tracking NASA’s Orion spacecraft after it launches toward the moon this month.

NASA officials announced that a network of 18 volunteers, organizations and space agencies will assist with tracking Artemis 1, which will send an uncrewed Orion spacecraft to orbit around the moon after blasting off from Earth atop a Space Launch System (SLS) rocket. Launch is set for no earlier than Nov. 14.

The selected volunteers, including two individuals in the amateur radio community, will “demonstrate whether they can receive Orion’s signal, and use their respective ground antennas to passively track and measure changes in the radio waves transmitted by Orion,” NASA officials said in a statement (opens in new tab) on Monday (Oct. 31). 

“These measurements will be made during three distinct phases of Orion’s approximately 25-day mission: the journey to the moon, its orbit above the lunar surface and the journey back to Earth,” agency officials added.  

Related: NASA’s Artemis 1 moon mission explained in photos

NASA collected the proposals in a Request for Information (opens in new tab) released in August. Data the participants pick up will be sent to the agency’s Space Communications and Navigation (SCaN) program. The goal is to improve tracking information for future deep-space missions, NASA officials stated. (NASA will also gather its own tracking data on Orion.)

“We received dozens of calls from antenna owners and operators around the world asking, ‘How can we get involved?'” John Hudiburg, SCaN’s mission commitment manager, said in the statement. “This was our answer: Show us what you can do while supporting the next big thing in human space exploration.”

Participating government space agencies include:

• Canadian Space Agency, Canada
• Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales (CNES), France
• German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt), Germany
• Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI), Republic of Korea
• National Space Centre, Elfordstown Earthstation, Ireland

Commercial companies include:

• Clearbox Systems Pty Ltd., Australia
• Goonhilly Earth Station Ltd., United Kingdom
• Intuitive Machines, U.S.
• Kongsberg Satellite Services (U.S. office)
• Leaf Space LLC, U.S.
• Swedish Space Corporation (U.S. office)
• Telespazio, Italy
• Vambrace Inc., U.S.
• Viasat, U.S.

The other volunteer groups or individuals are:

• Non-profit: CAMRAS, Netherlands
• Academic institutions: Space Systems Design Laboratory, Georgia Tech Research Institute, U.S.
• Private citizens: Scott Chapman, U.S. and Scott Tilley, Canada

Elizabeth Howell is the co-author of “Why Am I Taller (opens in new tab)?” (ECW Press, 2022; with Canadian astronaut Dave Williams), a book about space medicine. Follow her on Twitter @howellspace (opens in new tab). Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom (opens in new tab) or Facebook (opens in new tab).