ROCHESTER, N.Y. \u2014 Two Rochester Institute of Technology alumni played a role in capturing images from NASA\u2019s Artemis II lunar flyby mission earlier this month.<\/p>\n
Paul Reickert and Katrina Willoughby, who graduated from the former \u201cImaging and Photographic Technology Program\u201d at RIT, both served as flight operations imagery instructors at NASA. They trained the four Artemis II astronauts.<\/p>\n
News10NBC\u2019s Garrett Chan spoke with Reickert about training the astronauts on different photography techniques.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo watch the crew launch on the vehicle, do their translunar injection burn, slingshot off to the moon and fly around it and see all the spectacular images, I was proud of our mission here and how it really impacted the world,\u201d Reickert said.<\/p>\n
The astronauts trained for two years to prepare for all the stops and scenarios along their 10-day journey with a very slim margin for error.<\/p>\n
\u201cLike one of our challenges is or was, how do you get a really good picture of the Earth and the Moon in the same shot where most of the field of view is the black of space? Well, the light meter inside the camera doesn\u2019t really give you the right answer. So how are you going to solve that problem?\u201d Reickert said.<\/p>\n
The cameras the astronauts used were mostly off-the-shelf equipment.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had a Nikon D5 camera and we also had a Nikon Z9 camera. And of course the camera is just one part of the tool. You have to have certain lenses. So we ended up flying three lenses,\u201d Reickert said.<\/p>\n
At the School of Photographic Arts and Sciences at RIT, there\u2019s a lot of student and faculty pride. Director Christye Sisson shared her excitement about the mission.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s just an incredibly exciting moment. We love photography. We love everything about photography, both as a science, technology and an art form. And it\u2019s just the Artemis Two mission has just been a wonderful sort of demonstration of all of those things,\u201d Sisson said.<\/p>\n
As the world reflects on a space journey that took four astronauts farther than any human before, it\u2019s shining a new perspective on the place we call home and excitement for future generations looking up past the stars.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs I\u2019ve been looking at this photograph for a few weeks now, picking out details like the aurora borealis up here, grounds the image in a very human perspective, reminds us that this image is taken from a capsule in space,\u201d Sisson said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re on this little blue marble out in space and there\u2019s not really a whole lot out there around it. And that\u2019s our home. That\u2019s kind of our cocoon. And it supplies life for all of us,\u201d Reickert said.<\/p>\n
Reickert said NASA\u2019s already preparing for the Artemis III mission. Paul and Katrina said they\u2019re training prospective astronauts again on using the cameras.<\/p>\n
The Artemis III mission is expected to launch in the summer of next year. It aims to test landing and docking capabilities of the Orion spacecraft on the moon\u2019s surface.<\/p>\n