Divers from the Orion Open Water Recovery Team were on site at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia recently to do a hardware fit check of the inflatable stabilization collar that U.S. Navy divers will place around Orion at the water line. The collar will provide a work area for divers as they recover the Orion spacecraft after it splashes down in the Pacific Ocean following deep space exploration missions.
The team checked the fit of the collar around the Orion Structural Test Article on the ground and then in the hydro impact basin after the third successful vertical drop test of the test article. Divers installed the collar around Orion for a fit check and measurements before making final adjustments before Artemis II, the first Orion mission with crew.