NASA’s first manned trip to the moon in over 50 years needs volunteers.
The space agency announced last week that it’s crowdsourcing Earth-side support for its next mission.
Artemis II, tentatively slated for April 2026, will carry four astronauts on a 10-day lunar fly-by, marking the first time humans have ventured beyond Earth’s orbit since the Apollo program.
Volunteers with well-equipped ground stations can apply to keep tabs on the mission’s Orion spacecraft via radio signals as it transports four astronauts through space.
Those who are interested can apply through this government website, but they must have expertise in the capture and consistent monitoring of the Orion signal and/or similar S-band signals, as well as the ability to generate and document one-way Doppler tracking data.
The Artemis II itinerary includes an orbit of the Earth, a 4-day jaunt towards the moon, a lunar fly-by and a return trip. Organizations and individuals who volunteer for the mission will record and report on Orion’s S-band signals — a sort of deep space radio broadcast.
Crowdsourcing such a task is not only a fun way for NASA to gin up public interest — it’s free market research. As NASA opens itself up to commercial collaborations à la SpaceX, it will need to take privately owned tools for a test drive.
Kevin Coggins, NASA’s deputy associate administrator for their Space Communication and Navigation, said as much in the agency’s Aug. 26 announcement.
“By offering this opportunity to the broader aerospace community, we can identify available tracking capabilities outside the government,” said Coggins.
The Artemis program crowdsourced similar data in late 2022 when the Artemis I mission sent an unmanned Orion out to space for 25 days. A total of 18 volunteers successfully tracked the spacecraft’s signals as it traveled thousands of miles to the moon and back, according to NASA.
Artemis II will act as a sort of systems and hardware check for crewed deep space exploration, according to NASA. American astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Hammock Koch, along with Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen, will travel aboard Orion.
Their trip marks yet another step towards stepping foot once again on the lunar surface and, ultimately, sending humans to Mars.
Private organizations, international space agencies and academic institutions will likely dominate the volunteer picks.
The application to volunteer for Artemis II stipulates, among other requirements, that ground stations must be capable of picking Orion’s specific radio frequency and be able measure Doppler shifts — tiny pitch changes that indicate the spacecraft’s movements. Experience in this kind of one-way tracking is needed.
Although it’s unlikely that any old radio enthusiast will be selected, it’s not unheard of. The 2022 cohort of Artemis I volunteers included two amateur radio operators.
If you have a 9-meter antenna dish, a love of space travel and the will to fill out a 5-page technical report, why not reach for the stars?