MOREHEAD, Ky. (LEX 18) — The Space Program at Morehead State University will likely receive nearly $10 million dollars for its space tracking station after Representative Hal Rogers made an earmark request for the upcoming federal budget.
Rogers officially announced the funding as he introduced NASA Administrator Bill Nelson, who spoke as part of a lecture series at the university on Friday.
The space tracking station is one of four stations that NASA uses as part of its Deep Space Network. It is unique in that it is the only one not owned by NASA.
While on a tour of the MSU Space Center, Nelson called the network “critical.” It’s the largest and most sensitive telecommunications system in the world, allowing NASA to communicate with interplanetary spacecraft and other satellites, like the James Webb Telescope, NASA’s most prominent telescope that is orbiting the Earth. They are also involved in scientific research.
Morehead’s satellite dish can communicate with satellites as far away as Mars.
“As a matter of fact, there is a satellite up there going around the moon in a lunar polar orbit that is communicating to this dish right here, right now,” Nelson said, standing in front of MSU’s 21-meter tracking antenna.
Nelson explained the Deep Space Network doesn't have enough infrastructure right now. When they sent Artemis 1 around the moon last year, they had to cut off some communication to the James Webb telescope.
It’s the reason they need to expand the network, he told a group on the tour.
“And that’s exactly what we’re doing,” an MSU official replied to Nelson.
MSU recently installed a new dish. The funding from the upcoming federal budget will help them to further expand their facility and communicate further into space, Rogers said.
“This is the real deal here; it employs a lot of people and will employ more in the future,” Rogers said.
It’s important they find new jobs for people in the region, helping them have an option other than leaving Appalachia, he said.
“Space science is where the action is,” Rogers said. “That’s why there is a curriculum here at Morehead State.”
One person to benefit from that curriculum is Chloe Hart, who graduated from MSU in 2020 and is now their lead ground station operator.
“That is just an incredible announcement; it is not something I expected,” Hart said. “I’ve been part of this program since I was 18 years old and just hearing this announcement, the opportunities of what we can do with our ground station tracking antenna, it's just endless.”
While the federal budget as a whole is in limbo in Congress, a spokesperson for Rogers said they are confident this will stay in the final budget. All of his requests have been funded since earmarks - now known as “community project funding,” were brought back to the budget process. Rogers is the dean of the House and the chairman of the appropriations subcommittee on commerce, justice, and science.
