Westfield, Southwick TV managers capture Artemis launch liveDate: 11/23/2022 WESTFIELD – As Artemis I lifted off, a pair of Westfield television producers were there to see it, and film it, live.
Peter Cowles, the city’s media systems specialist and manager of Westfield Community Access Television, was there on Nov. 16 at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida with Ken Stomski, a Westfield Channel 15 producer and also the manager of Southwick Community Television.
They had multiple cameras set up to capture the historic launch. One was concentrated on the pad, another on the countdown clock, both robotic cameras they could control remotely. They also recorded with a hand-held video camera that worked independently from their computers.
“We were able to capture quite a lot,” Stomski said. “I spent a lot of time in the newsroom and spoke with a lot of people from all over the country that were just as excited as us to attend this Artemis launch. The buildup to this has been a long time coming.”
Artemis I is the first test of NASA’s new deep-space exploration system, with the Orion spacecraft launching atop the massive Space Launch System rocket. Its objective is to test the Orion spacecraft, particularly its heat shield, to be used in subsequent Artemis missions that seek to reestablish human presence on the Moon, demonstrate technologies and business approaches needed for future exploration, including to Mars, and pursue scientific studies.
Cowles and Stomski met through community broadcasting and shared a fascination with rocketry.
Originally, the Artemis I launch was going to be during the day and when Cowles and Stomski requested credentials, they were placed on a waitlist. When the launch moved to nighttime, many of the international media had to cancel their coverage, so NASA asked if Cowles and Stomski still wanted to come. They were in Florida from the morning of Nov. 12 to Nov. 17. They originally expected the rocket to launch during the overnight hours, Nov. 13-14, but Hurricane Nicole prompted another delay, of two days.
Artemis I isn’t the first launch Cowles and Stomski covered. In fact, they routinely film rocket launches at NASA’s facility in Wallops Island, VA, which are unmanned resupply missions serving the International Space Station. They went to the Kennedy Space Center for the SpaceX DM-2 launch in 2020, the first space launch from the United States to carry a human crew since the retirement of the Space Shuttle. In addition to rocket launches, Cowles and Stomski are working on getting more programming into public access and getting the Westfield community involved.
“We’ve done a lot of launches over the years,” Cowles said. “Artemis I is probably the second most historic one that we’ve covered to date. This launch was four RS-25 engines with two solid rocket boosters and it marks NASA’s return of sending a man-rated space craft to the moon.”
Stomski added, “Once it was 12 seconds into launch, you could literally feel the thrust from the rocket in your chest. It was pounding our chest at the press site at Kennedy Space Center.” He continued, “That was impressive. I’ve never experienced that in my life. We were able to witness history and we can bring it back to the people in Western Massachusetts.”
Cowles and Stomski posted their film of the Artemis launch to the Westfield Channel 15 YouTube page, www.youtube.com/c/WestfieldCommunityProgramming.
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