Comment by Brybry
17 hours ago
The public information sheet implies that in poor weather/rough seas they would do crew recovery in the well deck, sort of like how Dragon works. [1]
From the broadcast, they made it sound like a big factor is the 2 hour program requirement to get the crew out of the capsule. Maybe they can't reliably hit that mark with a well deck recovery?
[1] https://www3.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/files/orion-recove...
The other reason is that the capsule can splashdown far away from the ship. In this case it was close (3km or so). It can possibly fall much farther away. In which case boats would be much slower. Add in the possibility of rough seas & bad weather the helos make sense. And just to keep things simple I think they just use them no matter what. Prevent errors. Also gives a chance to rehearse and debug the full recovery process in case it’s actually really needed the next time.