I Am Artemis: Jason Peterson

For Artemis II, he supported the team responsible for delivering video and communication feeds for launch and splashdown. Credits: NASA/Danny Nowlin Jason Peterson’s responsibilities for NASA’s Artemis II mission went beyond his usual role as the range operations manager at NASA’s Stennis Space Center near Bay St. Louis, Mississippi. For Peterson, working at NASA is a surreal full-circle moment. “I grew up in DeLisle, Mississippi, right down the road from NASA,” said Peterson. “You would hear NASA testing, the windows would shake, and you knew they were out there. Not in a million years would I have ever dreamed I would work with NASA.” His career journey took a few turns before reaching the space agency. “I got out of school, welded, went to college and then to the Air Force. The path to NASA really started to develop from there,” said Peterson. Peterson spent 24 years in the U.S. Air Force and Air National Guard, working in airfield and air-to-ground range operations, followed by a few years working as an aircraft dispatcher at Airbus Final Assembly Line. Peterson credits his military experience with preparing him for the 12-to-16-hour workdays that helped bring the Artemis II test flight around the Moon and into view for audiences around the world. He supported the team responsible for delivering video and communication feeds for the launch of NASA’s SLS (Space Launch System) rocket with the Artemis II crew aboard the Orion spacecraft, and then splashdown in the Pacific Ocean. During the nearly 10-day mission, NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and CSA (Canadian Space Agency) astronaut Jeremy Hansen completed a record-setting lunar flyby, taking them 252,756 miles at their farthest distance from Earth. Aboard the USS John P. Murtha, Peterson was the first on the ship to spot the capsule returning with the crew. “T