UZH students collect data on moon flight for NASA

(CONNECT) During the Artemis 2 moon mission, the University of Zurich (UZH) is taking part in a test run for which NASA has selected 34 institutions worldwide. The North American space agency wants to find out whether it can support commercial providers, universities and private organizations in tracking the trajectory of satellites and space capsules. The incoming data is not used for the current mission. Instead, NASA is concerned with creating a resilient ecosystem for future missions, UZH quotes the deputy coordinator of NASA's Space Communication and Navigation Program in its report.

It is thanks to Achim Vollhardt that UZH was selected for NASA's test run in this regard. Last year, the lecturer at the Institute of Physics and head of the electronics workshop set up a radio telescope on the roof of the physics building "to give students the opportunity to work hands-on with real data". Some students were "really enthusiastic about it", Vollhardt continued. "That's why the ulterior motive was to pick them up on this interest." He didn't know at the time that NASA would be looking for participants for this program.

The UZH radio telescope can receive signals from the space capsule for five hours a day. The students will use this data to calculate the trajectory of the Orion space capsule. Because these have to be balanced again and again, his team "will also be able to measure and track some orbit corrections during the course of the mission," says Vollhardt. He has advertised several bachelor theses for the processing of the raw data. Among other things, they have to be cleaned of noise and saved in a special format. ce/mm