Stars align for RNZAF Space Squadron during historic Artemis II flight

The Orion spacecraft left Earth on Thursday and passed overhead about midnight, on its way to slingshot around the moon.

Today the astronauts made it to the far side of the moon – and became the first people to travel that deep into space. 

RNZAF personnel joined dozens of other countries in tracking the spacecraft’s progress over the 10-day mission and sending the results back to NASA.

No. 62 Squadron Commanding Officer, Wing Commander Matt Tristram, said they received a request from the US Space Force Delta 5 Human Space Flight Support Squadron which deals with human space flight, for all partner countries to track the mission.

The flight path was monitored using the squadron’s two telescopes, housed at its observatory in Whangaparāoa. Images were then sent to computers at RNZAF Base Auckland, where four of the squadron’s staff watched the spacecraft’s progress during the High Earth Orbit phase overnight on April 2. 

It passed over New Zealand’s sky at a height of 70,000km – about twice the distance the squadron would normally track objects in space. 

“We worked with our partners and the United States-led Joint Task-Force Space Defense Commercial Operations Cell (JCO),” Wing Commander Tristram said.

“We could use information that described the trajectory of the crew capsule to help point the camera in the right place. Essentially that information provided by some of the contributors to JCO helped us cue the camera with a telescope onto the spacecraft and be able to track it.”

The team was hoping to track its return to Earth next week, depending on weather conditions, Wing Commander Tristram said.

“It’s been amazing so far to be a small part of such a defining historic moment for space flight. Not only to be watching it on TV with the regular coverage, but actually contributing to monitoring it just makes it that little bit more personal. We are all so proud to be a part of history, even in a tiny sliver of a way.

“It was a privilege to be asked to help. We felt like we weren’t just observing it at arm's length, but were involved in the mission, which is just amazing.” 

Corporal Cicero Caramto was the first in the squadron to be trained on using the telescopes that tracked the flight. 

One of the telescopes covers four degrees of the night sky and the other, one degree.

“It's been exciting to learn about the equipment and get outputs from it. For space domain awareness tasking we get from partner nations and government agencies, it's such a cool tool to help them.”