A 4 a.m. test Thursday put University of Pittsburgh engineering students and the school’s ham radio club on a global stage.
Pitt was one of eight educational institutions worldwide selected by NASA to study the Artemis II mission and track the Orion spacecraft.
“The big win is the student experience, and to be able to have university students take all these theoretical things we taught them in the classroom and track the spacecraft,” said Samuel Dickerson, an electrical and computer engineering professor at Pitt. “The students had to do all of it, to carry out this kind of task.”
Artemis II launched April 1. The 10-day mission will carry four astronauts around the Moon and back — the first time since Apollo 17 more than 50 years ago.
Pitt engineering students, faculty and the Panther Amateur Radio Club designed and assembled devices to detect a radio signal, trying to reach the Artemis craft as it makes its way home.
Researchers performed the task from the roof of Benedum Hall in Oakland early Thursday morning. Orion was an estimated 200,000 miles away, Dickerson said.
“It is a very difficult, technical challenge to be able to even record the signal,” Dickerson said. “That’s why we had to be out at 4 in the morning. We calculated between 4 and 6:30 a.m. where it would be in the field of view from the University of Pittsburgh.”
NASA gave Pitt information about the frequencies the Orion spacecraft transmits on. Students designed a setup with antenna design, filter amplification and a radio to listen to the signal, Dickerson said.
“This is what ham radio looks like in 2026,” Dickerson said. “What we did is very much a ham radio activity — with a transmitter, receiver and known parameters.”
Artemis is the second mission of a five-part plan to explore more of the Moon for scientific discovery, and to build on a foundation for the first crewed missions to Mars.
The Artemis II Orion spacecraft is scheduled to splash down in the Pacific Ocean on Friday evening.
“NASA doesn’t need us in any way to tell them where the spacecraft is,” he said. “NASA put out a call to look at educational institutions and how they can work with them.”
The signal returned a “massive trove of data,” Dickerson said. Over the next weeks, Pitt researchers will review and analyze data to see if they picked up Orion’s signal.
“It’s not an instant, a-ha moment,” he said. “We have to go through the data and analysis to see if we have it.”
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.
Kevin Coggins is the deputy associate administrator for NASA’s SCaN Space Communications and Navigation Program.
In a statement, he said the tracking opportunity is a step toward the program’s commercial-first vision.
“By inviting external organizations to demonstrate their capabilities during a human spaceflight mission, we’re strengthening the marketplace we’ll rely on as we explore farther into the solar system,” Coggins said. “This isn’t about tracking one mission, but about building a resilient, public-private ecosystem that will support the Golden Age of innovation and exploration.”