After Artemis II splashed down off the California coast, the carefully rehearsed recovery and medical follow‑up sequence began. Recovery teams—Navy divers and medical personnel—move in only after flight controllers confirm the capsule is powered down and communications are reestablished. Divers secure a raft beneath the capsule hatch, perform an initial in‑capsule check once shutdown and crew status are verified, and then help astronauts exit in a predetermined sequence onto the raft. Each crewmember is then lifted by helicopter to the nearby USS John P. Murtha for more thorough evaluation.
Shipboard medical teams perform blood and saliva sampling and run a suite of cognitive and motor tests to evaluate how the crew is readapting after reentry and roughly 10 days in microgravity. Typical checks measure strength, coordination and dexterity, and include functional tasks that mimic real spacecraft activities—climbing a rope ladder, handling equipment and backpacks, and simulated docking or equipment‑handling procedures—to see how gravity and reentry loads affect performance.
Depending on health and preference, astronauts may spend a night aboard the recovery ship or be transported to Naval Air Station North Island in San Diego and then flown to Johnson Space Center in Houston. At JSC they receive more extensive medical exams, mission debriefs, and family reunions. Medical monitoring and research protocols continue for days and weeks after return to track readaptation to gravity and collect data for long‑term health studies.
The entire recovery is highly practiced. Teams train for years in many scenarios—calm and heavy‑seas recoveries, timed egress procedures, rapid evacuation routes to the ship—and backup rescue forces such as pararescue teams, C‑17s and staged equipment in places like Hawaii are ready if the landing veers off plan. Multiple agencies and contractors coordinate the operation, including NASA, the U.S. Navy, U.S. Space Command and the Air Force.
Reentry itself includes a normal communications blackout of several minutes when ionized plasma around the capsule temporarily blocks radio signals. Teams monitor telemetry through the blackout and await the first post‑entry calls. The capsule and crew endure high deceleration, heating loads on the heat shield, and the parachute deployment sequence; confirming proper performance of the heat shield and parachutes is part of the initial assessment.
After shipboard checks, astronauts go through staged, onshore testing: more vestibular and balance assessments, additional blood and saliva sampling, and longer functional tasks that simulate mission operations. The physiological and performance data gathered inform immediate care and help plan future missions.
The recovery also preserves the spacecraft for engineering and scientific analysis. The capsule and hardware are recovered, inspected and reviewed to verify systems performance and to feed lessons learned into subsequent Artemis missions.
In short: careful in‑water approach and safe egress, helicopter transfer to the recovery ship for rapid medical and functional testing, transport back to shore and onward to Johnson Space Center for expanded evaluations, and ongoing monitoring—all executed as a coordinated, multi‑agency operation to protect crew health and advance future exploration.