USAF KSC / NASA / Astronaut Rescue Patch

USAF Kennedy Space Center / NASA / Astronaut Rescue Patch

Circa 2006

NASA recently released news that its Commercial Crew Program is set to perform human spaceflight launches to the International Space Station from U.S. soil in the near future. NASA's critical obligation is to ensure crew safety and success for NASA missions and the commercial providers are responsible for safe operations of commercial crew transportation systems.

Serving as guardians of the astronauts is nothing new for Reserve Airmen from different USAF rescue squadrons, during NASA's previous 50-years of launching humans into space the GA (Guardian Angel) triad of Pararescuemen, Combat Rescue Officers and search, evasion, escape, evasion (SERE) specialists, have waited in the wings to respond in case of a contingency during any stage of human space launches until their human spaceflight program ended in July 2011.

One of the first requirements for the program included provisions to equip spacecraft with launch escape systems to survive launch and ascent emergencies. From there, each design phase has included ever-more-exacting consideration of safety factors in areas ranging from subsystems to integrated systems to mission operations. 

Members of the 308th Rescue Squadron “Guardian Angels” get ready to sail home after descending into the Atlantic Ocean using rescue equipment that was also airdropped from a C-17 Globmaster III during a NASA astronaut recovery exercise Jan. 14 near Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla. Air Force Reserve pararescuemen, combat rescue officers and survival, evasion, resistance and escape specialists trained in their specialty as part of a NASA Commercial Crew Program and Air Force 45th Operations Group Detachment 3 test of capability to recover astronauts quickly and safely in the event of they would need to abort their spacecraft. Det. 3, the Department of Defense's Human Space Flight Support Office, is the only full-time staff that coordinates and trains personnel to support human spaceflight contingencies. Det. 3 supports all NASA human spaceflight missions, including Soyuz, Commercial Crew, and Orion, and consists of Air Force and Navy military and civilian personnel from a wide variety of specialties.

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