DOUGLASSVILLE, Pa. – On Wednesday, the launch of the Artemis II rocket was an historic moment seen around the world. But behind the scenes, Cole Werley, a Berks Catholic graduate, now works at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center.
“The whole day just went so smoothly, and everyone couldn’t stop talking about how…we’re going today. Like, this is happening today. It was super exciting,” Werley said.
He was there at 6 a.m.
“The anticipation just kind of builds, hour after hour,” he said.
But this journey started long ago, back in Douglassville.
“My dad and I used to do the model rockets a lot when I was younger,” Werley said. “That was definitely a huge inspiration.”
That interest turned into a career, from Berks Catholic to the University of Pittsburgh to NASA.
It all started for Cole Werley, a Berks Catholic graduate now working at NASA, inside a barn in his family’s backyard.
“I got involved with some of the research labs there, particularly the Center for Space, High-Performance and Resilient Computing, where I got to work on some student-led experiments that went to the International Space Station,” Werley said. “So that was kind of the beginning of getting into NASA.”
Now, he’s helping capture every moment of the mission.
“We have a lot of highly energetic things happening during launch. And so what we’re interested in is slowing that down and getting a really, really good picture of it at a very high rate so that you can go back and perform photogrammetry and reconstruct those trajectories to make sure that there’s either a system that’s performing well, or if there’s any damage to the vehicle, real-time decision-making can be made,” Werley explained.
For kids back home, he has a message.
“Stay inspired,” he said. “There’s never been a better time to get into space exploration. Reach for the stars.”