Doppler Tracking of the Artemis II Mission (and Other Spacecraft)

Abstract

This report describes an American University (AU) student-faculty project to track the Orion spacecraft ``Integrity'' during the Artemis II mission, along its Earth-to-Moon trajectory. The Orion spacecraft has an S-band communications transmitter used for space-to-Earth messages. The S-band transmitter uses an orthogonal quadrature phase shift keying (OQPSK) digital mode, from which Doppler frequency measurements can be derived. This project successfully galvanized student excitement for experimental science, and for space science in particular. Even though we did not successfully obtain a Doppler estimate for the Orion spacecraft, we now have a fully functional end-to-end satellite tracking system as detailed in this report.