When the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's new Orion spacecraft returns from its first test flight and plunges into the Pacific Ocean in December, its recovery crew should know what to do.

An extensive team of technicians, engineers, sailors and divers have just finished weeks of testing and preparing for various scenarios that could occur after the space craft's re-entry sets it down off the coast of Southern California, where a United States Navy ship will be waiting to pluck it out of the water and return it to shore.

Transitioning from the extreme environment of space, Orion will streak back through Earth's atmosphere at speeds near 20,000 mph and temperatures approaching 4,000 degrees Fahrenheit.

"We learned a lot about our hardware, gathered good data, and the test objectives were achieved," Mike Generale, NASA recovery operations manager for the space agency's Ground Systems Development and Operations Program, said in a news release. "We were able to put Orion out to sea and safely bring it back multiple times. We are ready to move on to the next step of our testing with a full dress rehearsal landing simulation on the next test."

According to NASA's Website missions page, the Orion spacecraft has been designed to "take humans farther than they've ever gone before. Orion will serve as the exploration vehicle that will carry the crew to space, provide emergency abort capability, sustain the crew during the space travel, and provide safe re-entry from deep space return velocities."

Orion's first flight test, called Exploration Flight Test-1, will launch atop a Delta IV Heavy rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station's Space Launch Complex 37.

During the craft's maiden flight, flight managers will evaluate the ship's launch and high speed re-entry systems such as avionics, attitude control, parachutes and the heat shield.

NASA and Orion's prime contractor, Lockheed Martin, collaborated with the U.S. Navy and Defense Department's Human Space Flight Support Detachment 3 to try out different techniques for recovering the 20,500-pound spacecraft safely during the second such recovery testing and training.

In response to some of the lessons learned from the first test outing in February, the team tested out new hardware and rolled out a secondary recovery method that utilizes an on-board crane to recover the craft -- an alternative to the so-called well deck recovery method, which would involve Orion being winched into a flooded portion of the vessel.

The ship, U.S.S. Anchorage, "provided a unique, validated capability to support NASA's request for operational support without adversely impacting the Navy's primary war-fighting mission," said Cmdr. Joel Stewart, commanding officer of the Navy vessel. The mission, he added, "gave Anchorage sailors an opportunity to hone their skills for the routine missions of recovering vehicles in the well deck and operating rigid-hulled inflatable boats in the open water while supporting NASA. The testing with NASA was a success and Anchorage sailors continue to raise the bar, completing missions above and beyond any expectations."