BREVARD COUNTY, Fla. – A joint military task force recently conducted search and rescue training off Florida’s east coast as agencies prepare for an expected increase in human travel to space.
Crews from Hawaii, South Carolina and Florida focused on operations critical for astronaut recovery missions, such as those from SpaceX, Boeing and Artemis.
“The developments in the space industry from 2020, when [JB] Hickam originally picked up this alert, until now, show an increase in SpaceX launches, including Boeing Starliner, and now in 2026, the Artemis team,” Maj. Ryan Schieber, a member of the 315th Operations Support Squadron of the United States Air Force Reserve, said in a statement.
In less than eight hours, the crew reported completing 10 airdrops, including 30 pararescuemen jumps, in rough seas and wintry weather.
Waterways such as the Atlantic Ocean, Gulf of Mexico and Pacific Ocean provide a large, soft surface that helps to distribute a spacecraft’s energy during landing.
Many of the country’s previous space programs, including Mercury, Gemini and Apollo, used ocean splashdowns as their method for returning astronauts to Earth’s surface.
During SpaceX missions, a set of three parachutes is deployed to slow the descent of the spacecraft to only around 15 mph when it reaches the ocean.
In just minutes after splashdown, a coordinated recovery team retrieves the crew and captures the capsule for future use.
“Space travel is expected to increase, so the search and rescue alerts are going to increase, and we will be ready to answer that call,” Schieber stated.
The military task force said it is typically put on alert three to four times per year but is preparing for an increase in the number of events.
At least four crewed rocket launches are scheduled to take place from Florida’s Space Coast in 2025.
SpaceX’s Crew-10 mission to the International Space Station, which will carry four astronauts aboard a Dragon spacecraft, is slated for launch as early as late March.
A similar mission, Crew-11, is expected to launch and arrive at the ISS during the late summer.
Additionally, missions known as Fram2 and AX-4 will send civilians into space and are also expected to launch from Florida and return with a splashdown off the U.S. coast.
Over the past several decades, crewed launches and landings involving SpaceX and NASA have been carried out successfully, with past disasters such as the Space Shuttle Challenger and Columbia serving as critical learning experiences.
