Arcata-made boats help Navy recover Integrity crew after splashdown

Arcata-built boats were in the water when the Navy recovered the Artemis II crew after splashdown, a rare moment when a Humboldt manufacturer was tied directly to one of the most closely watched space missions in years.

The April 10 recovery came after NASA’s nearly 10-day flight around the Moon and back, when astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen splashed down off San Diego at 5:07 p.m. PDT. NASA said the capsule, named Integrity, had carried the crew 252,756 miles from Earth at its farthest point.

The Navy said the primary recovery ship was USS John P. Murtha, which worked with NASA and U.S. Space Command to bring the crew and spacecraft from the water to the ship’s well deck for medical checks. Wing Inflatables’ 4.7- and 5.8-meter raiding craft were part of that operation, along with hard-sided rigid inflatable boats carrying Wing inflatable sponsons and collars. Wing Mustang Survival flotation gear and dry suits were also used.

For Humboldt County, the bigger story is what it says about the local industrial base. Wing’s Arcata facility sits in the former California Barrel Factory on Samoa Boulevard, and the company has long built boats for NASA and SpaceX for vehicle recovery and astronaut survival. That is not a branding exercise or a ceremonial name drop. It is a local factory supplying equipment for missions where precision and reliability matter at every step.

The company’s scale also reaches beyond the Space Coast and the North Coast. In 2021, Wing won a $31,921,100 Marine Corps contract for up to 904 Enhanced Combat Rubber Reconnaissance Craft, a deal tied to 45 Arcata jobs. That kind of work places a Humboldt manufacturer inside the defense supply chain, with production capacity that supports skilled labor locally while serving missions far from home.

Wing Group expanded that footprint again on Jan. 14, 2026, when it announced the acquisition of Kokatat, the Arcata paddlesports gear company that has made gear in Arcata for more than 50 years. Together, the businesses point to an industrial cluster that has grown quietly in Humboldt, even as many local economic stories center on closures and instability.

The Artemis II recovery showed a different side of the county’s economy: a homegrown manufacturer with enough technical depth to help recover astronauts after a mission that marked the first time humans had journeyed to deep space in more than 50 years.