At 5:07 p.m. PDT on April 10, 2026, the Orion capsule splashed down in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of San Diego. The crew of four was completing a nine-day journey that had taken them farther from Earth than any human ever before. Stationed on the frontlines of this final stage of the mission—capsule recovery—was a Baylor alumnus.
Ensign Henry Banaghan graduated Baylor in 2024 with a B.S. in Engineering. Banaghan is stationed at US Naval Base San Diego where he serves as Fire Control Officer aboard the USS John P. Murtha (LPD 26). As an amphibious transport dock, the ship is commissioned to transport Marines to foreign shores for military operations or deliver humanitarian supplies and personnel. Rarely, the vessel assists in spacecraft recovery operations.
According to Banaghan, the USS John P. Murtha is uniquely suited for NASA recovery operations. Its well deck, a lower deck of the ship often flooded to receive or launch vessels, served an instrumental role in the recovery mission. “[As] a landing platform dock, we do well deck operations all the time. We flood the back of the ship, [and] we bring different craft into the back of the ship. So, bringing something like the capsule back in the back of the ship, [is] different, but pretty similar,” Banaghan said. Another capability of the USS John P. Murtha is helicopter-based personnel recoveries—an essential element of the Orion capsule recovery operation. The physical condition of the astronauts upon returning to earth is such that they cannot weather a boat ride.
The USS John P. Murtha launched six small boats and four helicopters hours before splashdown. The boats waited a distance from the splashdown target zone to avoid falling debris. After hearing the capsule reenter Earth’s atmosphere with a sonic boom and watching its parachutes deploy, slowing the capsule’s descent, the sailors waited for the clear to approach.
Once given the greenlight, “all the small boats race over and start doing hazard assessments,” Banaghan recounted. “They’re checking the capsule to make sure it’s safe for them to approach it because some of the chemicals they use to cool the capsule and protect it are hazardous. They have to wait for those to dissipate, so they can approach it.”
After determining it is safe, the boats approached. Upon reaching the capsule, a flight doctor immediately entered and performed a full physical assessment of the astronauts. Once the astronauts were determined to be healthy, they were lifted into the recovery helicopters and transported back to the ship.
By 7 p.m., with the astronauts safely aboard, the crew then focused on capsule recovery, rigging the capsule to be towed. On the ship, the well deck was flooded, and towing lines for the capsule were readied.
At midnight, with Banaghan at the helm and the astronauts receiving medical attention aboard, the USS John P. Murtha began approaching the capsule. Banaghan needed to maneuver his 684-foot-long ship within 150-200 feet of the capsule without touching it whatsoever.
This critical step of the operation did not go as planned.
“But right as [the capsule] was getting close, late at night, the lights of our ship and then the lights of the small boats around it kind of lit it up … And being that close to it, all of a sudden, it being, 200 or 300 feet away, and just floating right there as our small boats are hooking up the tow lines. That was a really cool experience but was also kind of scary as we were having problems,” Banaghan said.
The crew was having trouble detecting the ship’s distance to the capsule. The pitch-black night prevented the laser rangefinder from functioning effectively. The other systems typically used to get ranges were also struggling.
Banaghan had to think on his feet. “On the fly, I came up with a new way to use the equipment that we had to get a range … And then I was able to call out ranges to the capsule and help us maneuver to get close enough to it for the tow line to be hooked up,” Banaghan said.
After fastening towing lines to the capsule, small boats guided the capsule to the flood deck, at the rear of the ship. A motorized winch hauled the capsule into the ship as more lines were attached to steady the capsule. Once the capsule was positioned above its cradle, the USS John P. Murtha was brought back up and the water receded. Finally, the boats returned to the ship—a full 11 hours after splashdown.
Banaghan believes his time at Baylor equipped him with foundational skills that he uses every day as a naval officer. “Having my engineering background, like the problem-solving skills…and the project management skills I learned at Baylor, when I was doing senior design, and different engineering classes … those are some of the most effective skills that I use on a day-to-day basis. That alone has made a huge impact on my career so far.”
A sixth-grade visit to NASA Space Camp in Huntsville, Alabama, first introduced Banaghan to the Artemis program. “Finding out that I would be on the team recovering the Artemis capsule, all these years later, and having that full circle moment of, wow, going from being that little kid, seeing the scale model and being awestruck by [it], being at space camp, being like, ‘Oh man, I want to be an astronaut, I want to be on this mission,’ to actually being on the mission in a different role … God brought me full circle and that was a really amazing experience.”
