Four astronauts are scheduled to complete their trip to the moon with a splashdown off the coast of Southern California this evening. And when they do, a specialized Navy team will be waiting for them.
The Artemis II mission is on its tenth and final day, after taking humans into lunar orbit for the first time in five decades. The Orion space capsule carrying NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, and Christina Koch, and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen, is expected to land roughly 60 miles offshore of San Diego at 8:07 p.m. Eastern Time.
From the time Artemis II hits the atmosphere over Hawaii to its splashdown near California, NASA says, should be a little over 12 minutes. The astronauts will feel nearly 4 Gs of force as the spaceship enters an expected communications blackout. In the final minutes, its parachutes will deploy, sending the Navy’s teams into action.
Top Stories This Week
The amphibious transport dock ship USS John P. Murtha is the designated recovery ship. Once the Orion capsule splashes into the ocean, a dive medical team will be the first to greet the crew. The team, part of Explosive Ordnance Disposal Group ONE, will do an initial inspection of the crew’s condition inside the spaceship. Once ready to move, the astronauts will be picked up by an MH-60S Sea Hawk helicopter from Helicopter Sea Combat Squadron (HSC) 23 to return them to the John P. Murtha.
The dive medical team includes Lt. Cmdr. Jesse Wang, Senior Chief Hospital Corpsman Laddy Aldridge, Chief Hospital Corpsman Vlad Link, and Hospital Corpsman 1st Class Steve Kapala. According to the Navy, the team specializes in caring for troops who carry out diving operations. Wang is also an emergency medical doctor.
“Our fellow divers, the sailors on the ship, the helicopter squadron, our partners at NASA, and everyone supporting this mission are ready to bring the Artemis II crew home,” Wang said in a Navy release ahead of Artemis II’s landing.
Navy teams will then recover the capsule itself.
On the Murtha, the Artemis II crew will undergo more medical tests then fly to NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston where more post-mission tests will examine the impact of the 10-day mission on their conditions.
The Artemis II mission was the first NASA mission to travel to the Moon in more than 50 years. The rocket took off on April 1, sending the crew flying around the dark side of the Moon on April 7, setting the record for the farthest any human has been from Earth.
Military teams and dozens of Navy ships played a major part in past space missions, for planned recoveries or emergency rescues. In 1961, Virgil “Gus” Grissom’s landing in the Mercury-Redstone ship Liberty Bell 7 almost killed him. As a Marine helicopter arrived to recover the spaceship, a hatch blew open, sending seawater into the ship, threatening to drown Grissom. He swam out of the capsule, but without a helmet, allowing water into his suit. The Marine crew saw Grissom signaling and saved him.
NASA is streaming the Artemis II landing starting at 6:30 E.T. on its YouTube page.
