Tenerife Observatory Successfully Tracks NASA’s Artemis II Orion Capsule
The Two-meter Twin Telescope at Tenerife’s Teide Observatory has successfully tracked NASA’s Orion capsule, demonstrating the facility's vital role in monitoring cislunar space for future missions.
Monitoring the space between Earth and the Moon has become more effective thanks to the Two-meter Twin Telescope (TTT3) at the Teide Observatory. Light Bridges, the company behind the facility, confirmed that the telescope successfully tracked NASA’s Orion capsule—part of the Artemis II mission—during the early hours of April 3rd. This achievement highlights the increasing need for surveillance in cislunar space, a region now vital for aerospace security and future lunar missions.
The telescope tracked the spacecraft between 04:27 and 04:29 UTC, while it was 65,000 kilometers from Earth. To capture the capsule moving at 10,800 km/h, the team used the TTT3’s high-precision tracking system to compensate for the object's rapid speed. Using a high-sensitivity camera called FERVOR-M, the team took 200 images, each with a 0.4-second exposure, to record the capsule’s movement.
The success of the operation relied on the telescope’s automation software, ROBOTQOP. This system allows the two-meter telescope to operate independently, combining high-speed movement with extreme precision. These capabilities make the Canary Islands facility a strategic asset for space traffic control and planetary defense, where tracking satellites and debris is essential.
The Artemis II mission, carrying four astronauts, is currently on a trajectory that will bring it within 10,000 kilometers of the Moon. This flight is a key test for the Artemis program, which aims to establish a long-term human presence on the lunar surface. The observation from Tenerife proves the precision of Light Bridges’ technology and underscores the importance of ground-based observatories in supporting crewed deep-space missions in real time.