The U.S. Air Force conducted a five-day training of 38th Rescue Squadron members to prepare them for potential urgent response operations in support of Boeing and SpaceX missions under NASA's Commercial Crew Program.
The 38th RSQ Blue Team learned how to land in the ocean with water gear and familiarize themselves with different boat packages that will carry materials necessary to perform emergency response work if astronauts need to be extracted from space capsules in the Atlantic or the Pacific Ocean, USAF said Monday.
Crewed space vehicles are designed to separate from rockets if a malfunction transpired after liftoff, and the goal of the squadron is to act as the on-site rescue team for the astronauts in the event of a launch failure.
USAF noted that routinary exercises will help increase the crew men's proficiency level and consequently give security to spacecraft crew members as they perform off-the-coast launches.
SpaceX aims to launch the company's third crewed operational flight of its Dragon spacecraft to the International Space Station on Oct. 31st.
Boeing postponed a second uncrewed flight demonstration that was scheduled for Aug. 3rd in order to fix issues with its Starliner spacecraft's propulsion system.