She continued her missile tracking until being placed out of service in 1972, at which time she was reclassified range tender YFRT-524, and eventually sold for scrap in 1974.

At the time Navy had command and control authority over nearly all Vandenberg Air Force Base launches and the range.

NASA technical party operators used on board equipment, including helix antennas, data recording systems and a communications suite with direction finders to locate and recover payloads.

Since that time, into 1970, Range Recoverer operated out of Little Creek primarily between Wallops Island and the splash down area near Bermuda.

During the mid-sixties the ship traveled to Greece for coordinated research on a solar eclipse and was visited by the Greek royal family.