NASA targets final certification run for Orion spacecraft recovery

The joint team will practice recovering a test version of an Orion capsule and bringing it into the well deck of a Navy ship to ensure that all personnel are well-trained before the real Orion splashes down.

NASA and the U.S. Navy are gearing up for the ninth in a series of tests to verify and validate procedures and hardware that will be used to recover Orion, the spacecraft that will carry humans to the Moon and beyond, after it splashes down in the Pacific Ocean following the agency's Artemis I mission.

In a blog post on Monday, the U.S. space agency said that its Landing and Recovery team, managed by Exploration Ground Systems, is heading from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida to Naval Base San Diego in California where the final certification run for the Artemis I mission will be conducted.

The weeklong test will see NASA and the U.S. Navy team conducting simulations that will exercise all the operational procedures, including nighttime, to support the certification of team members for the Artemis I mission. The joint team will practice recovering a test version of an Orion capsule and bringing it into the well deck of a Navy ship to ensure that all personnel are well-trained before the real Orion splashes down.

Named after one of the largest constellations in the night sky, Orion will launch atop NASA's Space Launch System (SLS), the world's most powerful rocket, on its first deep-space mission to pave the way for future flights with astronauts. During the Artemis I mission, the uncrewed spacecraft will venture thousands of miles beyond the Moon over the course of about three weeks, setting the stage for human deep space exploration.