NASA has big (and extremely complicated) plans to return Americans to the Moon in the next few years — and it would like your help. As part of a wider push to offload costs and capabilities to the private sector, the agency wants to use the upcoming Artemis II flight to see how well non-NASA actors can track the spacecraft. If it goes well, it may prove that there are viable alternatives to the agency’s own Near Space Network and Deep Space Network, potentially meaning that a cheap private contract is a better option. It’s even possible that you could be so good at tracking spaceships that NASA can effectively get the info it needs for free.
This is similar to the program that NASA ran during the flight of Artemis I back in 2022, during which ten volunteers, a mix of big institutions and private citizens, did indeed manage to keep tabs on the spacecraft, Orion, for its whole voyage. The way this works is pretty simple: as long as you have a radio receiver dish that can rotate, it could follow the Orion’s trajectory and pick up its transmissions. Those transmissions are at a fixed frequency, which means you’ll be able to tell how fast Orion is moving towards or away from you. This is just the doppler effect, the same principle that means a siren sounds high-pitched when it’s coming towards you, and low-pitched as it’s heading away (applied in NASA’s case to radio waves instead of sound waves).
Working for NASA from your couch
Basically, you’d just need to store all that radio frequency data, format it, and then upload it to NASA. In other words, you’re just receiving that raw information from Orion and passing it along. Pretty simple job, but if it does lead to a new, reliable tracking system distributed amongst citizens and industry, it could have a big impact.
If you want to do some work for NASA, and you have a rotating radio dish, you have until October 27 to apply. The Artemis II flight itself is scheduled for “no later than April 2026,” but, dear reader, do not be surprised if it ends up being later. NASA has a lot to figure out, from proposed budget cuts to issues with the Space Launch System rocket. Still, the Trump administration insists that we’re going to beat the Chinese to the Moon, and to do that, Artemis will need to fly. Get your dish ready. You want to help America win another Moon race, don’t you?
h/t NPR
