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USS Portland Brings Orion Capsule to Port After a Month and 1.4 Million Miles in Space

USS Portland (LPD 27) is officially a San Antonio-class transport dock. It’s fielded by the U.S. Navy, and ever since its launch in 2017, it led a rather unremarkable life. Until this week, that is, when it forever tied its name to space exploration.
Orion spaceship on the USS Portland 20 photos
Photo: U.S. Navy
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The Portland is the ship tasked with retrieving the Orion spaceship that flew for almost a month and 1.4 million miles (2.25 million km) in the space around Earth, moved way past the Moon, and safely returned home. Together with the USS Montgomery (LCS 8), but also two military units, the Helicopter Sea Combat Squadron (HSC 23) and Explosive Ordnance Disposal Expeditionary Support Unit (EODESU) 1, the Portland got hold of the Orion on December 11. And now it brought the capsule back to terra firma.

The Portland docked at U.S. Naval Base San Diego on December 13, and a day later, the Orion was taken off the transport, to be moved back to the Kennedy Space Center.

Before getting on the way over land, though, the Orion will first have to be inspected. Then, hard covers will be placed over its windows, and the five airbags will be deflated. The ship’s hatch will finally be opened, and the Biology Experiment-1 payload (plant seeds, fungi, yeast, and algae sent to space to study the effects of radiation) will be removed.

Once all this is done, the Orion will be loaded onto a truck and will begin its journey back to Florida. Once there, it will be deposited in the Multi-Payload Processing Facility, where most of its other cargo, from a life-size test dummy to Snoopy and Shaun the Sheep zero-g indicators, will be unloaded.

A few very busy months lie ahead for NASA's rocket scientists, as they’ll try to learn as much as possible from the Artemis I mission, in preparation for the planned and crewed Artemis II flight.
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About the author: Daniel Patrascu
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Daniel loves writing (or so he claims), and he uses this skill to offer readers a "behind the scenes" look at the automotive industry. He also enjoys talking about space exploration and robots, because in his view the only way forward for humanity is away from this planet, in metal bodies.
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