Green Bank Telescope tracks Orion's Integrity capsule during Artemis 2
NASA's Artemis 2 mission in May 2026 got some serious backup from the Green Bank Telescope (GBT) in West Virginia.
From over 321868km away, GBT tracked the Orion spacecraft and even snapped a pixelated image of the Integrity capsule carrying four astronauts.
It's pretty wild to think about, watching humans travel that far from Earth with help from a giant radio telescope.
GBT Orion speed within 0.2mm/s
GBT measured Orion's speed with mind-blowing accuracy, just 0.2mm per second off NASA's own numbers.
As Anthony Remijan put it, "It's like having a speedometer in your car that can track your speed within 0.0004 decimal places per hour,"
The telescope has helped out on big missions before (like DART in 2022), and National Science Foundation officials say this kind of inter-agency support helps make the most of NSF capabilities.