{"id":367491,"date":"2026-04-07T07:50:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-07T07:50:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/367491\/"},"modified":"2026-04-07T07:50:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-07T07:50:09","slug":"stars-align-for-rnzaf-space-squadron-during-historic-artemis-ii-flight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/367491\/","title":{"rendered":"Stars Align For RNZAF Space Squadron During Historic Artemis II Flight"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tuesday, 7 April 2026, 4:41 pm
Press Release: New Zealand Defence Force<\/a><\/p>\n

Royal New Zealand Air Force (RNZAF) No. 62 Squadron
\npersonnel have been tracking the historic Artemis II flight
\nas it passes over New Zealand skies, sending four NASA
\nastronauts further into space than any human has ever
\nbeen.<\/p>\n

No.
\n62 Squadron personnel at RNZAF Base Auckland monitoring the
\nArtemis II flight
\n(Photo\/Supplied)<\/p>\n

The Orion
\nspacecraft left Earth on Thursday and passed overhead about
\nmidnight, on its way to slingshot around the
\nmoon.<\/p>\n

Today the astronauts made it to the far side of
\nthe moon \u2013 and became the first people to travel that deep
\ninto space.<\/p>\n

RNZAF personnel joined dozens of other
\ncountries in tracking the spacecraft\u2019s progress over the
\n10-day mission and sending the results back to
\nNASA.<\/p>\n

No. 62 Squadron Commanding Officer, Wing
\nCommander Matt Tristram, said they received a request from
\nthe US Space Force Delta 5 Human Space Flight Support
\nSquadron which deals with human space flight, for all
\npartner countries to track the mission.<\/p>\n

The flight
\npath was monitored using the squadron\u2019s two telescopes,
\nhoused at its observatory in Whangapar\u0101oa. Images were then
\nsent to computers at RNZAF Base Auckland, where four of the
\nsquadron\u2019s staff watched the spacecraft\u2019s progress
\nduring the High Earth Orbit phase overnight on April
\n2.<\/p>\n

NASA
\nastronaut and Artemis II Commander Reid Wiseman took this
\nphoto of Earth from the Orion spacecraft’s window on April
\n2, 2026, after completing the translunar injection burn
\n(Photo\/ NASA\/Reid Wiseman)<\/p>\n

Advertisement – scroll to continue reading<\/p>\n

It
\npassed over New Zealand\u2019s sky at a height of 70,000km \u2013
\nabout twice the distance the squadron would normally track
\nobjects in space.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe worked with our partners and
\nthe United States-led Joint Task-Force Space Defense
\nCommercial Operations Cell (JCO),\u201d Wing Commander Tristram
\nsaid.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe could use information that described the
\ntrajectory of the crew capsule to help point the camera in
\nthe right place. Essentially that information provided by
\nsome of the contributors to JCO helped us cue the camera
\nwith a telescope onto the spacecraft and be able to track
\nit.\u201d<\/p>\n

The team was hoping to track its return to
\nEarth next week, depending on weather conditions, Wing
\nCommander Tristram said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been amazing so far
\nto be a small part of such a defining historic moment for
\nspace flight. Not only to be watching it on TV with the
\nregular coverage, but actually contributing to monitoring it
\njust makes it that little bit more personal. We are all so
\nproud to be a part of history, even in a tiny sliver of a
\nway.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a privilege to be asked to help. We
\nfelt like we weren\u2019t just observing it at arm’s length,
\nbut were involved in the mission, which is just
\namazing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Corporal Cicero Caramto was the first in
\nthe squadron to be trained on using the telescopes that
\ntracked the flight.<\/p>\n

One of the telescopes covers four
\ndegrees of the night sky and the other, one
\ndegree.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s been exciting to learn about the
\nequipment and get outputs from it. For space domain
\nawareness tasking we get from partner nations and government
\nagencies, it’s such a cool tool to help
\nthem.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\u00a9 Scoop Media<\/a>
\n
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\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tuesday, 7 April 2026, 4:41 pmPress Release: New Zealand Defence Force Royal New Zealand Air Force (RNZAF) No.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":35750,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[111,92408,24636,139,69,39761,147,11112,145],"class_list":{"0":"post-367491","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-science","8":"tag-new-zealand","9":"tag-new-zealand-defence-force","10":"tag-newsworthy","11":"tag-newzealand","12":"tag-nz","13":"tag-sci-tech","14":"tag-science","15":"tag-scoop","16":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/367491","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=367491"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/367491\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35750"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=367491"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=367491"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=367491"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}