they're ready to take their step out of Orion and onto that large raft, the front porch
folks will be ready
And as there are mission audio loops in mission control in Houston, there is a mission audio
loop here on the ship. And it was just reported out that the side hatch is open
Side hatch of integrity is open. You're getting these beautiful shots from our aerial assets
The ship itself where I'm on just 3,000 yards away. Again plenty of people on the boat here, glued to the side, closest to where they can see
all this action and again with just 3,000 yards separating us, great views from the bow here
You can see now that side hatch is open. One of the Navy personnel is about to get inside there
In they go. In total, four will go into Orion. So it'll be a little bit of a tight squeeze, but the goal is to have a recovery
personnel with each astronaut assessing them Boats getting closer now
Again, that one that's right up against Orion, those are the divers that will go in to the
spacecraft to check on each of the astronauts. These other boats will begin doing a number of
things, putting on that stabilization collar onto Orion, building that front porch
Eventually, they will retrieve the parachutes, as well as tow Orion back to the well deck of the recovery ship here
And so as we wait for the Navy and NASA personnel to get their assessment of the crew inside
of Orion, why don't we toss it back to Rob for an update. Rob McClendon, Director of the United States of America
Thank you, Megan. and Mission Control, Flight Director Rick Henfling and the entry team of flight controllers
still on duty. The vehicle has been powered down for some time now. There are no hazardous gases
emanating from integrity. That, of course, allowed the recovery personnel to approach the vehicle and
then open the hatch to begin the initial medical assessment of the crew, as you just indicated
Now we're standing by for the erection of that inflatable raft, the front porch alongside of the vehicle that will enable the crew to be extracted one by one onto the raft
have a moment or two to get their land legs back before they hoisted into two hovering Navy helicopters two crew members for each helicopter for a short flight back to the deck of the USS John P Murtha
All of Integrity's systems operated flawlessly throughout the course of the approach to the Earth
the entry into the Earth's atmosphere, and all of the key milestones
that followed in this high-speed return to Earth for Integrity. a mission that spanned more than 694,000 miles from the vehicle's launch from the Kennedy Space Center
atop the space launch system back on April 1st. Thank you
Thank you
As we mentioned at the top of the broadcast the last time that the Apollo program saw a splashdown in the Pacific was Apollo 17 back on December 19th 1972
So for the first time in 54, some 53 and a half years
we have reenacted that with the arrival of Integrity's astronauts as they flew around the moon in that historic lunar flyby
that began with a translunar injection burn that took them out of Earth orbit
following 24 hours of a high Earth orbit trajectory. The high Earth orbit trajectory enabled flight controllers here
to have a full 24 hours to evaluate the systems on integrity
and the condition of the crew before they would commit to flying to the moon
Thank you