University of New Brunswick research team detects Artemis II signals

University of New Brunswick engineering students tracked the Artemis II mission.

Researchers at the University of New Brunswick (UNB) successfully picked up signals from the Artemis II mission on its orbit of the moon.

It’s the only Canadian university involved in tracking NASA’s Orion spacecraft called “Integrity” on its approximately 10-day journey, according to a news release from UNB.

The release says they picked up a radio frequency transmission in the early morning of April 4 at the UNB Earth Station.

Dr. Brent Peterson, a member of the electrical and computer engineering faculty, and student researcher Megan MacDonald confirmed the detection.

“There were high-fives in the control room,” says Peterson in the release, noting it was 5:12 a.m. when they caught it.

“Integrity was 16.5 degrees above the horizon, and the azimuth was 186.5 degrees, which meant the antenna was looking over the Student Union building,” he notes.

Premier Susan Holt was given a tour of the project on Friday, calling it another example of the province punching above its weight.

“Here in small but mighty New Brunswick, we’ve proved that you can have a six-foot satellite, put together and organized by brilliant students, and it can work and pick up the signal of Artemis,” says Holt. “It’s nice to have that reinforcement that we may be small, but we can do big things here in New Brunswick.”

NASA selected UNB as one of three Canadian contributors helping to track Integrity during its mission around the moon.

By tracking Integrity’s radio signals, UNB is contributing data to a historic space mission, the first crewed lunar journey in over 50 years.

With files from CTV News Atlantic’s Nick Moore

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