Pitt selected to follow Artemis II’s Orion spacecraft journey

Kellen Stepler TribLive Wed, Apr 8, 2026 • 05:00 PM

Orion spacecraft is seen in the foreground lit up by the Sun. (Courtesy of NASA)

The University of Pittsburgh was one of eight universities worldwide chosen by NASA to track Artemis II’s Orion spacecraft.

Pitt engineering students, faculty and the Panther Amateur Radio Club will use a mix of analog devices and artificial intelligence to track Orion in real time.

Using instruments they built to search for the spacecraft’s signal, Pitt researchers will be on Benedum Hall’s roof at 4 a.m. Thursday.

Artemis II and its crew of four astronauts launched April 1. It is a 10-day mission where astronauts will go around the Moon and back for the first time since Apollo 17, more than 50 years ago.

Artemis is the second mission of a five-part plan to send Artemis astronauts on increasingly difficult missions to explore more of the Moon for scientific discovery, and to build on a foundation for the first crewed missions to Mars.

Pitt researchers will share their data with NASA to help the agency understand how outside institutions and people can support the space program in the future.