NASA Seeks Volunteers to Track Orion Spacecraft in 2026

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NASA Seeks Volunteers to Track Orion Spacecraft in 2026

A good way for space enthusiasts to get involved: NASA is looking for volunteers to track next year's Artemis II Orion spacecraft during the crewed mission's round-trip journey between the Earth and the Moon. Volunteers have until October 27th to contact NASA about their desire to participate.

The US space agency is asking for those with the necessary capabilities to observe the Doppler shift on the Orion's S-band return link carrier signal. The monitoring is designed to achieve and keep a carrier lock solely for purposes of tracking the spacecraft. Volunteers will not be transmitting or uplinking signals. Orion's S-band range is between 2200 and 2290 MHz.

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Hans Summers, G0UPL Confirmed as the RSGB Convention After-Dinner Speaker

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Hans Summers, G0UPL from QRP Labs has been confirmed by the RSGB as the after-dinner speaker at its Convention in October. Following the gala dinner, Hans will be sharing the emotions he experienced during the nine months he spent adding SSB to the QMX transceiver.

Tickets for the gala dinner, along with those for the full Convention programme and the three exciting workshops, can be purchased via rsgb.org/convention  This year’s RSGB Convention takes place at Kents Hill Conference Centre in Milton Keynes between Friday the 10th and Sunday the 12th October 2025. Book now and join like-minded radio amateurs for an action-packed programme.

Two new RSGB activities for National Coding Week

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National Coding Week takes place during the third week of September and the RSGB is dedicating the whole of the month to amateur radio and coding activities.

This year, the Society has created two new activities for you to try. Both build on worksheets it shared in previous years, however, you don’t have to have done those first.

Python Pocket Morse activity

The Python Pocket Morse activity has been developed by the RSGB Maker Champion Tom Wardill, 2E0JJI and is a low-cost opportunity to learn some Morse and programming together. The exercise will cover using a BBC Micro:bit V2 and the ‘more advanced’ Python programming instead of the previous block programming mode. It is intended as a gentle introduction to both Python and small computer programming and can be done without any previous knowledge of the micro:bit. You can download the full instructions via the activity web page.

LoRa Balloon Challenge

The other new activity is the LoRa balloon challenge. As well as the manual which guides you through the process of building your own LoRa tracker and seeing how far your signal can reach, the Society has released a video in which Fraser, MM0EFI demonstrates the process. Find both on the RSGB website.