Orion has been safely recovered and is inside the USS Anchorage. After the crew module splashed down in the Pacific Ocean earlier today, a team of NASA, U.S. Navy and Lockheed Martin personnel attached hardware to the spacecraft, allowing them to move it into the ship’s well deck and nestling Orion onto several bumpers on the bottom of the deck. Over the next several days, the team will perform an initial check out of Orion while the Anchorage transports the spacecraft back to shore. It is expected to be off loaded at Naval Base San Diego on Monday.
Excellent! A perfect recovery to a perfect 1st. test flight of AMERICA’S newest BEO spacecraft. ORION!
Congratulations to NASA, the US NAVY, and LOCKHEED MARTIN—- WELL DONE. I cant wait till EM1.
Have been excited the last 2 days.watched launch and spashdown. awsume! takes me back to watching Apollo Moon Missions.Great job Nasa you still have the right stuff. My hope is to live to see first man misson to Mars.
The recovery seemed to take a long time – did it take longer than was scheduled?
I am so imspired that this has finally happened. Congratulations! To all the people that made this happen.
please advise of next approximate launch date…….I missed the shuttles but have see orion lift off on my bucket list….thanks
Job well done for the test flight of Orion. Why is it that the controllers are still using the old 60s vocab…Roger fell out the window and wilco followed. Hey Orion flight controllers its the 21st century. Plain speak does work. A OK and Orion feels fine! I followed the program since the Gemini program. Also, is it that the program has to wait almost three years for another flight test?
Congratulations!
The launch of the Orion has finally led to success!
The moment we have all been waiting for has arrived, Nasa is taking the 2nd step in planning a Mission to our future home also known as the blue planet, Mars.
Glad the Orion launch and recovery went smoothly.
Hope we can go back to the moon and establish a
habitat and observatory for remote sensing observing and being
prepared for the Mars expedition.
Looking forward for data from New Horizon in July 2015
and the Webb Space Telescope at Lagrange point on the other
side of the moon.
Hello, and thanks for the info on Orion. A couple copyedits that would help the text:
In the Latest News section on the main Orion page, the text should read on board the USS Anchorage”, not inside it.
On this page (Orion Recovered), the second sentence should read “…attached hardware to the spacecraft that allowed them to move it to (or onto, not into) the ship’s well deck and nestle it among (or in, not onto) several bumpers on the deck (not on the bottom of the deck).
Regards,
Eric Martinson
excellent picture from orion thanks to NASA.
Why is it recovered in a well deck instead of using a crane as was done with the Apollo/Gemini/Mercury capsules?
Excellent, good to see there’s still Americans who have a vision and value teamwork. Looking forward to seeing the continuing plan executed.
Bravo!
Glenn
Portland Or
I am very happy that all went well and can’t wait to pour over the published engineering data.
If NASA is going to hit its deadlines it needs the funding and to ramp up the production of both the SLS and Orion.
We should go back to the moon and establish a base. There are many, many rare earth minerals lying on the ground that would pay for space travel 10 times over!
Congratulations NASA! It’s good to know that our space program is still going strong!