NASA Astronauts Hospitalized After Splashdown in Uncommon Incident

All 4 Crew-8 astronauts underwent medical evaluations at a Florida hospital Florida after coming back from house on board a SpaceX Crew Dragon, and one astronaut was pressured to remain in a single day resulting from an unspecified medical challenge.

NASA’s SpaceX Crew-8 mission splashed down at 3:29 a.m. ET on Friday off Pensacola, Florida, following a virtually eight-month-long keep on board the Worldwide House Station (ISS). The crew returned to Earth on board a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft which “executed a traditional entry and splashdown,” in response to NASA. Reasonably than heading to NASA’s Johnson House Middle in Houston, nevertheless, the four-person crew have been flown collectively to Ascension Sacred Coronary heart Pensacola hospital in Florida to bear medical checks.

“The crew exited the Dragon spacecraft onto a restoration ship for traditional post-flight medical evaluations,” NASA wrote in a weblog update. “Out of an abundance of warning, all crew members have been flown to the ability collectively.” Three of the crew members departed the hospital whereas one unnamed astronaut stayed behind for an in a single day keep, presumably resulting from a medical challenge. The id and specifics of the astronaut’s situation weren’t shared by NASA to guard their privateness.

Hospital officers launched the astronaut the next day, permitting a return to the Johnson House Middle to renew common post-flight reconditioning with different crew members. NASA confirmed that the astronaut was in “good well being.” It’s nonetheless not clear whether or not the medical challenge was introduced on by the keep in orbit or the journey again to Earth, or maybe one thing unrelated to their time in house. Nonetheless, the truth that all 4 crew members have been taken to the hospital for extra medical evaluations appears to recommend that the medical challenge was by some means associated to the journey again to Earth.

Crew-8 included NASA astronauts Matthew Dominick, Michael Barratt, and Jeanette Epps, in addition to Roscosmos cosmonaut Alexander Grebenkin. The 4 astronauts spent a complete of 232 days on board the ISS, touring almost 100 million miles and finishing 3,760 orbits round Earth whereas conducting scientific analysis, in response to NASA.

NASA’s Crew-8 launched to the ISS on March 4, however their return to Earth had been delayed for a number of weeks due to hurricane Milton, forcing the house company to forgo an undocking try on October 7. The crew was initially scheduled to return in mid-August however NASA prolonged the mission to maintain the Dragon spacecraft docked to the ISS for Starliner’s stranded astronauts in case of an emergency.

Boeing’s spacecraft launched astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams in June, however an empty Starliner returned to Earth in September, leaving its crew behind after it was deemed unfit to return the astronauts to Earth. Within the occasion of an emergency on the ISS, the 2 astronauts would have wanted the additional room on the Dragon spacecraft to shelter in place.

The delays to the crew’s return precipitated the astronauts to spend almost eight months in house moderately than the unique mission timeline of six months. House is a harsh surroundings that takes its toll on the human physique, affecting bone and muscle density, imaginative and prescient, and even inflicting astronauts to become more susceptible to infections on board the ISS. There’s clearly much more analysis that must be finished on astronaut well being and methods to mitigate the dangerous results of house on the human physique earlier than astronauts make the lengthy trek to Mars.