NASA Collaborates with U.S. Navy to Recover Orion Spacecraft Returning from the Moon
NASA and the U.S. Navy rehearse for the Orion recovery operation. (Photo: KSC).
The Artemis 1 Mission is set to conclude soon, and the U.S. Navy is prepared to recover the Orion spacecraft in the Pacific Ocean. The Navy has been training with NASA for this recovery operation, which includes raising the Orion capsule from the ocean and hoisting the vehicle onto the amphibious transport dock USS Portland using a winch. Following this, the USS Portland will transport the Orion spacecraft to the port at Naval Base San Diego, Space reported on December 9. To prepare for the recovery operation, the U.S. Navy, the Landing and Recovery Team under NASA’s Exploration Ground Systems program at Kennedy Space Center (KSC), along with personnel from the Department of Defense (DoD), have trained for several years, starting from 2014.
Currently, the Orion spacecraft is traveling through space at a speed of 1,786 km/h on its way back to Earth. It will enter the Earth’s atmosphere at a velocity of 40,000 km/h on December 11. After deploying a series of parachutes, the descent of the capsule will gradually slow to 11 km/h before the vehicle lands precisely within the recovery team’s sight, according to NASA.
The Artemis 1 team aims for a landing just off the coast of San Diego, but weather forecasts may push the target approximately 480 km southward, offshore from Baja California. Along with the crew of the USS Portland and accompanying aircraft, NASA’s Landing and Recovery Team will include a team of U.S. Navy divers, weather experts from the U.S. Air Force, engineers, and technicians from Lockheed Martin, the manufacturer of the Orion capsule.
Images shared by KSC showcase the scale of the recovery operation involving the USS Portland, Sikorsky SH-60 Seahawk helicopters, and various smaller inflatable boats to transport divers to the Orion spacecraft for attaching the winch cables. Melissa Jones, NASA’s recovery operations director at KSC, stated that the training is not only for the Artemis 1 mission but also for future Orion recoveries returning from the Moon with astronauts on board.
