When NASA officials cheered the Artemis II mission’s splashdown as a “perfect bull’s-eye” on Friday, several American University students and staffers were cheering too.
They celebrated at a campus watch party as the four crew members — astronauts Reid Wiseman, Christina Koch, Victor Glover and Jeremy Hansen — safely returned from their historic trip around the moon.
For some in attendance, it was the conclusion of their own official and successful mission for the U.S. space agency. American University was one of eight higher education institutions selected to track the Orion spacecraft via radio waves.
Ankur Purao, a senior majoring in physics and the student leader of the AU Doppler project team, called it “pretty special” both to watch the landing and actively participate in supporting the 10-day mission.
“In 40 or 50 years, I’ll be able to tell my kids I was part of this team in some official capacity when we went further than any humans have ever gone before,” Purao said.
That excitement came with nerves as students waited for NASA’s confirmation of a safe return.
“When you’re doing this for the first time in half a century, there’s always a little bit of nervousness,” Purao said. “But I’m glad that all the nervous energy is gone and now it’s just excitement that’s left.”
Another member of the Doppler project team, physics junior Ella Bianco, said watching the return was “very, very nerve-wracking.”
“But seeing the astronauts back on Earth safe, and knowing that we had a part in all of this, even though it was just a very small part, is an awesome thing that I’ll carry with me my whole life,” Bianco said.
Two freshmen on the team, Shafaq Yousaf and Naomi Morris, described spending several early mornings and late nights at an American University property in Warren, Virginia, where they set up a radio telescope. They said they got emotional when the Orion spacecraft splashed down.
“We’re gonna be telling generations about this, and that we’ve played a part in this,” Yousaf said.
“I almost cried,” Morris added.
Even AU students outside of the physics major got into the spirit of the event. Four biology and biochemistry majors could not resist the temporary NASA tattoos placed next to the free pizza.
They told WTOP they attended the watch party to support their fellow science students. Plus, “It’s Artemis, and it’s super cool, and it’s nice to have that to share with people,” one student said.
“The student excitement is really, I’d say, out of this world, to be a little cliche about it,” said Michael Robinson, professor of mathematics and statistics and faculty adviser for the Artemis tracking team.
As for the splashdown, Robinson said, “everything went perfectly … from a technical standpoint, as well as from a student excitement standpoint.”
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