4 Artemis II Astronauts Got Preview of Moonship Test Recovery Off San Diego

A dozen lucky Navy personnel acted as Artemis astronauts in late July as a jet-black Orion space capsule replica was used to test ocean recovery procedures.

Four Navy divers were used for the first practice off the San Diego coast. Four maintenance workers from a helicopter squadron were the “volunteer astronauts” for the second session.

And two helicopter squadrons and two Naval aircrewmen were on the lone night session (taking place late Monday and early Tuesday), said Andrew Quiett, a retired Navy helicopter pilot now a civilian with the U.S. Space Command.

Unmentioned at a Wednesday media event on Underway Recovery Test 10: The real Artemis II crew visited the scene two weeks ago.

NASA astronauts Victor Glover, Christina Hammock Koch and Reid Wiseman, plus Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen, toured Naval Base San Diego on July 19.

They posed with Navy and NASA teams and also inside the Vehicle Advanced Demonstrator for Emergency Recovery — or VADER (as in Darth Vader) — a replica of the Orion crew module which in late November 2024 will ferry the foursome around the moon and back to earth for a splashdown off San Diego.

(NASA hopes to make a first lunar landing since 1972 a year later — in late 2025.)

“The [VADER] name came about by a member of the recovery team because of the look of the capsule and then the acronym stuck,” said NASA spokeswoman Madison Tuttle, based at Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

In keeping with the mood, a Darth Vader image was on the replica capsule.

Answering media questions aboard the amphibious transport dock ship USS John P. Murtha was Lili Villarreal, NASA’s landing and recovery director for the Artemis moonshots.

She confirmed that Artemis missions will end with splashdowns off San Diego (weather permitting). The unmanned Artemis I capsule came down off Baja, but was unloaded by the USS Portland at Naval Base San Diego.

Villarreal described VADER as a “high fidelity capsule with people inside with instrument panel.”

The latest sessions were important, she said, “because we’ve never (practiced) pulling crew out.”

Spokesman Quiett, who was stationed in San Diego three times, said a “flotilla” of rigid hull and inflatable boats from the Murtha and two rubber craft with divers recovered the faux astronauts within the required two hours.

After divers placed a “stabilization collar” around the craft, they inflated a NASA-designed “front porch” life raft that accommodates 20 people.

“NASA has a requirement that we have a paramedic … for every astronaut,” Quiett said. A dive medical officer is first “to have eyes on the astronauts” when the capsule door opens.

Helicopters also have paramedical “med techs,” and the pickup ship has a full medical team. 

The spacecraft itself was winched into the Murtha’s bay flooded with 7 1/2 feet of water, and four devices called llamas — with ropes tied to the VADER — stabilize the capsule aboard ship.

“They work like a drag on a fishing reel,” Quiett said. “They limit the pullout … until we get it in the right position.”

What happens if the real Orion craft doesn’t hit its GPS-aided landing mark?

“We will always have a C-17 (aircraft) and PJs (parajumpers working with the Air Force) active and on call during the re-entry,” Villarreal said. “The capsule can survive a full 24 hours after splashdown” and the crew even longer.

The latest training began July 25, and Day 1 was devoted to putting the capsule into the water and pulling it out, she said. Later days were devoted to alternate methods of recovery in case copters can’t fly.

Capt. Doug Langerberg — born in 1970 amid the Apollo moon landings — is commander of the Murtha. Being part of the test was “humbling” and “neat,” he said.

Besides his ship’s 400 crew members, he said, hundreds of others were involved in the test labeled URT-10, including folks at Space Center Houston — as many as 1,000 total.

Among the 40-50 divers taking part were four women, Langerberg said.

Another recovery test is set for early 2024 — with the actual astronauts taking part. Their 10-day lunar flyby mission is targeted for late 2024.

But if the Murtha is tapped for the historic Artemis II recovery, Langerberg won’t have the honor of commanding the ship.

He said he expects a change in command after the first of the year. He doesn’t yet know where he’s going.