UTEP professor details experience with Artemis II mission

EL PASO, Texas (KVIA) -- Four astronauts made history as the first crewed flight to the moon in more than 50 years. UTEP professor Jose Hurtado was part of the Science Evaluation Team for the landmark Artemis II mission with NASA.

Hurtado is a professor in the Geological Sciences program at UTEP.

He was in Mission Control in Houston for the duration of Artemis II. He said it was awesome being part of history.

"Still trying to process it, but it was a fantastic two weeks," said Hurtado.

Hurtado said there were times where he had to take a step back to realize what he was doing and how much work had come to this point. He wasn't stressed on launch day, but he was very excited.

"It was a beautiful launch. There were lots of tears being shed, a lot of celebration," said Hurtado. "We knew that we were getting ready for an historic time in the following ten days."

The Science Evaluation Team was in communication with the crew and helped tell them what they were looking at.

"We were really responsible for maintaining situational awareness so the team knows what was going on overall through the whole mission," said Hurtado. "We had to let the science officer know what was happening with the science team and just relay questions and answers back and forth."

ABC-7 will have a full story with Hurtado tonight on ABC-7 at 10.