Daniel Olson, from Plano, said assisting in the Artemis II mission splashdown was one of his proudest accomplishments.
He was assigned to Navy Helicopter Sea Combat Squadron (HSC) 23, which airlifted the Artemis II crew back to USS John P. Murtha for further evaluations and then back to land.
It wasn’t the exact moment of the splashdown that struck Olson, he said.
“For me, it was when I got out of the rack and got my flight gear on,” Olson told WFAA. “Like ‘Today’s the day. Today we hear the sonic boom. Today we see the capsule fall. Today we see the splash down and we see the astronauts.’”
It will be a hard moment to beat during his time in the Navy, Olson said. He joined the military about one year ago to see more of the world. Olson, a Plano East Senior High School graduate, said the splashdown was his first mission, calling it an incredible honor.
His role was as an aviation electrical technician’s mate. The job is to make sure all the electrical components on the helicopter were in working order.
“These helicopters, they are intricate,” Olson said. “There’s a lot of things going on in there and to make sure that they can fly and pick up these astronauts on this very important day was really important to me.”
As for the future, he hopes to assist in other space missions, and maybe go on to work for NASA or SpaceX.
“A personal belief of mine is that everybody’s dealt a hand in life,” Olson said. “It can be a good hand, a bad hand, or a fair hand. But how you play it really determines how you can survive, how you can win in life.”