Underway Recovery Test

On the deck of the USS San Diego, NASA and U.S. Navy personnel monitor the process as a crane is used to lower Orion's forward bay cover into the Pacific Ocean as part of a Orion underway recovery test on Feb. 18, 2014. The Orion boilerplate test vehicle and other hardware were secured in the well deck of the ship in preparation for the test about 100 miles off the coast of San Diego, California. NASA and the U.S. Navy conducted tests to prepare for the recovery of the Orion crew module, forward bay cover, and parachutes on its return from a deep space mission. The underway recovery tests allow the teams to demonstrate and evaluate the recovery processes, procedures, hardware and personnel in open waters. Part of Batch image transfer from Flickr.