WIKIARCHIVES.SPACE

Astronaut Stuart A. Roosa, command module pilot, is hoisted inside a Billy Pugh net to a U.S. Navy helicopter assisting in Apollo 14 recovery operations in the South Pacific Ocean. Visible in a life raft beside the Command Module (CM) are astronauts Alan B. Shepard Jr., commander, back to camera; and Edgar D. Mitchell (partially obscured by the spacecraft), lunar module pilot. Three U.S. Navy underwater demolition team swimmers who assisted in the recovery operations are pictured in and around the life raft. Apollo 14 splashdown occurred at 3:04:39 p.m. (CST), Feb. 9, 1971, approximately 765 nautical miles south of American Samoa in the South Pacific Ocean.