University of Pittsburgh engineering students, along with the Panther Amateur Radio Club, joined an exclusive group of eight universities this morning to track Artemis II’s Orion spacecraft.Juan Manfredi, professor of mathematics at Pitt, said this journey was a once-in-a-lifetime experience.”Twenty years from now, they may not remember who taught a course, but they will remember the experience of being here on the roof at four in the morning trying to copy Orion,” he said. Senior electrical engineering students Jake Wendt and Sawyer Mervis explained the technical process behind their work. “And that allows us to capture the signal that the Artemis II spacecraft transmits, and it just allows us to be able to copy that very low strength signal,” Wendt said. “So what we’re looking for is to find some sign of the signal that they’re communicating back to Earth, back to NASA. And if we can see how it changes based on how fast they’re moving, that’s what we’re looking for,” Mervis said. Other faculty members said they love to see students apply what they learned in the classroom to a real-life situation. “It’s so gratifying to see the students, all the theory that we teach them in the classroom, electronic signal processing algorithms, they’ve had to use all of that to accomplish this very cool task of can we track and see, so to speak, the astronauts as they travel back and forth to the moon,” said Sam Dickerson, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at Pitt. The students will have two weeks to calculate their findings and send them to NASA. Artemis II is expected to return to Earth tomorrow afternoon.

PITTSBURGH —

University of Pittsburgh engineering students, along with the Panther Amateur Radio Club, joined an exclusive group of eight universities this morning to track Artemis II’s Orion spacecraft.

Juan Manfredi, professor of mathematics at Pitt, said this journey was a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

“Twenty years from now, they may not remember who taught a course, but they will remember the experience of being here on the roof at four in the morning trying to copy Orion,” he said.

Senior electrical engineering students Jake Wendt and Sawyer Mervis explained the technical process behind their work.

“And that allows us to capture the signal that the Artemis II spacecraft transmits, and it just allows us to be able to copy that very low strength signal,” Wendt said.

“So what we’re looking for is to find some sign of the signal that they’re communicating back to Earth, back to NASA. And if we can see how it changes based on how fast they’re moving, that’s what we’re looking for,” Mervis said.

Other faculty members said they love to see students apply what they learned in the classroom to a real-life situation.

“It’s so gratifying to see the students, all the theory that we teach them in the classroom, electronic signal processing algorithms, they’ve had to use all of that to accomplish this very cool task of can we track and see, so to speak, the astronauts as they travel back and forth to the moon,” said Sam Dickerson, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at Pitt.

The students will have two weeks to calculate their findings and send them to NASA. Artemis II is expected to return to Earth tomorrow afternoon.