{"id":258738,"date":"2026-04-21T01:20:07","date_gmt":"2026-04-21T01:20:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/258738\/"},"modified":"2026-04-21T01:20:07","modified_gmt":"2026-04-21T01:20:07","slug":"from-plano-to-space-mission-navy-sailor-assists-in-artemis-ii-recovery-operation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/258738\/","title":{"rendered":"From Plano to space mission: Navy sailor assists in Artemis II recovery operation"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>One year after joining the Navy, a Plano East graduate found himself helping recover astronauts at sea.<\/p>\n<p>PLANO, Texas \u2014 Daniel Olson, from Plano, said assisting in the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wfaa.com\/article\/news\/nation-world\/photos-artemis-ii-orion-spacecraft-mission-splashdown-pacific-ocean-pictures\/507-514a29f1-b43d-4b4c-9355-bb614bbcaecc\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">Artemis II mission splashdown<\/a> was one of his proudest accomplishments.<\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>It wasn\u2019t the exact moment of the splashdown that struck Olson, he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFor me, it was when I got out of the rack and got my flight gear on,\u201d Olson told WFAA. \u201cLike \u2018Today&#8217;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.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>His role was as an aviation electrical technician&#8217;s mate. The job is to make sure all the electrical components on the helicopter were in working order.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThese helicopters, they are intricate,\u201d Olson said. \u201cThere&#8217;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.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>As for the future, he hopes to assist in other space missions, and maybe go on to work for NASA or SpaceX.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cA personal belief of mine is that everybody&#8217;s dealt a hand in life,\u201d Olson said. \u201cIt 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.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One year after joining the Navy, a Plano East graduate found himself helping recover astronauts at sea. PLANO,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":253488,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[160,162,161],"class_list":["post-258738","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-plano","tag-plano","tag-plano-headlines","tag-plano-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258738","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=258738"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258738\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/253488"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=258738"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=258738"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=258738"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}