NASA selects 34 global volunteers to track the Orion spacecraft during the crewed Artemis II mission’s journey around the Moon

The Artemis II test flight will launch NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket, carrying the Orion spacecraft and a crew of four astronauts, on a mission into deep space. The agency’s second mission in the Artemis campaign is a key step in NASA’s path toward establishing a long-term presence at the Moon and confirming the systems needed to support future lunar surface exploration and paving the way for the first crewed mission to Mars.

While NASA’s Near Space Network and Deep Space Network, coordinated by the agency’s SCaN (Space Communication and Navigation) program , will provide primary communications and tracking services to support Orion’s launch, journey around the Moon, and return to Earth, participants selected from a request for proposals published in August 2025, comprised of established commercial service providers, members of academia, and individual amateur radio enthusiasts will use their respective equipment to passively track radio waves transmitted by Orion during its approximately 10-day journey.

Saving HamClock

Keith Maton, G6NHU is the owner behind the G6NHU dxspider DX cluster which is specifically fine tuned to work well with HamClock.  In the past, Keith was instrumental in helping me configure the dx cluster in my own HamClock, and I'm grateful and appreciative of his knowledge.  

With the pending June 2026 demise of HamClock (see my 1/30/26 post, "The End of HamClock: RIP WB0OEW") due to the untimely recent passing of its creator, Elwood Downey WB0OEW, efforts are underway in the ham community to recreate the backend server which powers the informational content carried by Hamclock.  Keith specifically notes:

"I fully support Brian Wilkins (KO4AQF) with his work to reverse engineer the output from the HamClock server. I think this is the best method to try and keep HamClock functioning past June. If we can build another source for the data and replicate that at multiple places around the world we can be sure we won’t end up in this situation again.

https://github.com/BrianWilkinsFL/open-hamclock-backend

If you’re able to help with this project, or know anyone who can assist, please contact Brian directly.

Thank you."

I want to add that Austin Parsons, KN4LNB is also involved with the backend project.  I wish I had the knowledge and skills to help out with this project, but unfortunately I don't.  As it is, the ham community should be very grateful for the efforts of guys like Brian, Austin and Keith who care enough to save HamClock.

Brian stated: 

Mason Matrazzo KM4SII, radio science and engineering research competition winner

I'm particularly proud to highlight Mason Matrazzo, KM4SII, who in addition to being a noted ham radio operator and DX'er in his own right, is the grandson of Dan and Marlo Matrazzo.  (Marlo is my wife Jane's lifelong friend from childhood.)  

Mason is a first-year PhD student in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE), and is is the first Auburn University student to win the Ernest K. Smith Student Paper Competition.  Needless to say, we are all pretty proud of Mason!

Part of the National Radio Science Meeting, the competition was held Jan. 6–9 in Boulder, Colorado. The meeting was co-sponsored by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Antennas and Propagation Society and the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine and organized by the U.S. National Committee for the International Union of Radio Science.

Mason's study, “Parametric Modeling and Analysis of Lightning Sferic Waveforms for D-Region Remote Sensing,” demonstrated how radio waves generated by lightning can be used to track changes in the lowest region of the ionosphere — a layer of the atmosphere that affects long-distance communication.

This work could help scientists better determine ​the way the ionosphere varies over time and space, enhancing the understanding and prediction of how critical communication systems are affected by changes, including space weather events such as solar flares.

They That Go Down To The Sea

Sadly, the fishing town of Gloucester, Massachusetts lost another trawler this past week 20 miles offshore. It has been reported that seven souls were on board with one body having been recovered as of this writing.  

The Gloucester Fisherman's Memorial commemorates the thousands of fishermen lost at sea in the first three centuries of Gloucester's history.  It has become a symbol of the Gloucester since it was cast in 1925.  It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1996.

One of the crew was 22-year-old Jada Samitt.  According to Jon Cunningham, K1TP, of neighboring Rockport and creator of As The World Turns, a popular ham blog, Jada's family stated that she moved from Virginia to MA to study environmental biology.  Being on the crew was her first big job at sea and was "her dream".  

Jada Samitt, 22

The Lily Jean, its captain, Gus Sanfilippo, and his crew were featured in a 2012 episode of the History Channel show “Nor’Easter Men.” Sanfilippo is described as a fifth-generation commercial fisherman, fishing out of Gloucester, Massachusetts, in the Georges Bank. The crew is shown working in dangerous weather conditions for hours on end, spending as many as 10 days at sea on one trip fishing for haddock, lobster and flounder.  

May God bless Jada, Gus, and his crew and comfort their families.

84th Anniversary of the Marine 9th Defense Battalion

Today, February 1, marks the 84th anniversary of my father's unit, the Marine 9th Defense Battalion, the "Fighting Ninth".  Formed in 1942, the Battalion earned a Presidential Unit Citation for their action on Guadalcanal.  Guadalcanal is considered the turning point in the World War II Pacific Theater as it marked the first major American offensive against Japan, halted Japanese expansion and shifted the strategic initiative to the Allies.  The victory laid the groundwork for subsequent Allied successes in the Pacific and also prevented the Japanese invasion of Australia.  I am immensely proud of my father and his fellow Marines.

Uncommon valor was a common virtue.

Semper Fidelis

Turning Lead Into Gold

 

Physicists trying to recreate conditions just after the Big Bang have accidentally done something once thought impossible: they turned lead into gold.

The discovery happened at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in Switzerland during experiments by the ALICE team. Scientists were smashing lead atoms together at nearly the speed of light to study how matter behaves under extreme energy and heat.

During these experiments, some lead atoms passed very close to each other without fully colliding. These “near-miss” encounters created powerful electromagnetic fields that knocked protons out of the lead atoms. 

Since lead has three more protons than gold, removing exactly three protons caused the remaining nucleus to briefly become gold.

The amount of gold produced was incredibly tiny. Scientists estimate a total of about 29 trillionths of a gram, with roughly 89,000 gold atoms forming per second during collisions. 

The gold couldn’t be seen directly, but researchers detected the released protons using special instruments, confirming the transformation. Small traces of thallium and mercury were also formed when fewer protons were removed.

CERN scientists say the finding has no commercial value—the gold produced is trillions of times too small to be useful—but it is scientifically important. 

Understanding these atomic changes helps physicists better analyze collider data and design future experiments to explore the fundamental nature of matter.