As NASA’s Artemis program inches closer to its first crewed lunar mission in over half a century, the United States Navy has stepped into a critical role, finalizing preparations to retrieve the Orion spacecraft and its four-person crew after their splashdown in the Pacific Ocean. The mission, which will mark humanity’s first return to crewed deep space exploration since the Apollo program concluded in 1972, is scheduled to conclude with a controlled splashdown off the coast of San Diego on April 10.