NASA's Orion Returns to Land in San Diego Aboard USS Anchorage

San Diego-based USS Anchorage arrived in San Diego Monday carrying the Orion spacecraft back to U.S. soil.

NASA’s new spacecraft test mission made a successful splashdown in the Pacific Ocean Friday after a 3,600-mile journey through space.

The crew aboard USS Anchorage, a San Antonio-class amphibious transport dock ship, worked for several hours Friday to recover the spacecraft, which landed 600 miles off the San Diego coast.

A team of specially trained Navy drivers worked in small boats and used tending lines to guide Orion to the Anchorage.

The Navy trained for months for the mission. Navy divers worked with NASA to orchestrate the recovery.

“This is a little bit more critical on how we recover it. Typically, if we’re recovering something for a salvage job, the condition in which we bring it up isn’t that important, but here, that’s the most critical factor," said Master Diver Tim Roff with the Navy.

Six Navy units participated in the recovery, according to Navy spokeswoman Lt. Chelsea Irish

An amphibious ship like USS Anchorage was picked for the mission for a number of reasons, ranging from its well deck to its strong radar used to track the capsule, Irish said.

The spacecraft will be at Naval Base San Diego before it’s sent to a NASA location.

Friday's test flight of Orion ushered in a new era of human exploration. NASA is counting on future Orion spacecraft to carry astronauts beyond Earth's orbit, to asteroids and ultimately the grand prize: Mars.

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