San Diego

San Diego is California's second-largest city, situated on the Pacific coast at the US-Mexico border, with a population of approximately 1.4 million in the city and 3.3 million in the wider metropolitan area. It is home to a major US Navy installation, Naval Base San Diego, which is the homeport of the Pacific Fleet and the operational hub for NASA's Artemis ocean recovery operations. The Orion capsule carrying the Artemis II crew is scheduled to splash down in the Pacific Ocean approximately 50 miles off the San Diego coast on return from its lunar flyby mission.

The Navy will retrieve the capsule and crew using a San Antonio-class amphibious transport dock ship operating out of Naval Base San Diego. This recovery model follows the Apollo-era tradition of Pacific splashdown and US Navy retrieval, and San Diego's geographic position, with open Pacific access and proximity to naval and medical infrastructure, makes it the preferred recovery hub for NASA's western splashdown corridor.

Beyond its military role, San Diego is a significant aerospace and defence technology hub, home to facilities operated by General Atomics, Cubic, and a growing commercial space sector. Its naval and industrial infrastructure makes it one of only a handful of US cities capable of hosting the logistics of a crewed spacecraft recovery operation.