A NASA sea ship that for 30 years retrieved space shuttle boosters after they splashed down in the Atlantic Ocean now has a new mission to serve the Merchant Marines.

On Tuesday, NASA signed a memorandum of understanding with the U.S. Transportation Department's Maritime Administration (MARAD) to transfer the agency's solid rocket booster recovery ship, MV Liberty Star, to the National Defense Reserve Fleet to be used for training at the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy in Kings Point, NY.

"Liberty Star served NASA well during the space shuttle program," Robert Lightfoot, acting associate administrator for NASA, said in a statement. "We know it will greatly benefit the Kings Point midshipmen, and we're proud that Liberty Star will continue to serve the United States with distinction."

Mission complete The Liberty Star, which was one of two vessels that were designed to recover the shuttle's side-strapped solid fuel rockets, has been in service to NASA since 1981. It and its sister ship, the Freedom Star, would each track one of the twin solid rocket boosters (SRBs) that separated from the shuttle after about two minutes of flight, rendezvous with it at sea, and then tow it back to port for its reuse by the space shuttle program.

During its three decades recovering rockets, the 176-foot long (54 meter) Liberty Star was also used to tow shuttle external fuel tanks, which were loaded onto a barge, from their assembly facility in New Orleans to NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla.

The dual diesel engine ship was also used to occasionally support research operations for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and several universities.

In the past year, Liberty Star participated in recovery tests for NASA's Orion crew capsule, which is being developed to take astronauts to an asteroid and ultimately Mars. The ship supported the Crew Module Recovery Attach Fitting Test (CRAFT) to help develop the equipment to recover an uncrewed Orion flight test capsule after splashdown.

Most recently, Liberty Star sailed in conjunction with the May 22 launch of the first commercial spacecraft to lift off for the International Space Station. As the Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) Dragon capsule lifted off atop the company's Falcon 9 rocket, Liberty Star was used to track the booster's flight using NASA diagnostic radar systems.

With the shuttle program's end last year, however, NASA no longer needed booster recovery vessels. Although the agency has plans to launch the shuttle-legacy rockets in the coming years with its new heavy-lift vehicle, called the Space Launch System, they will be treated as expendable and allowed to sink into the ocean.

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NASA's shuttle program ship gets new job