NASA Astronauts Hospitalized After Splashdown in Rare Incident

All 4 Crew-8 astronauts underwent aesculapian evaluations astatine a Florida infirmary Florida aft returning from abstraction connected committee a SpaceX Crew Dragon, and 1 astronaut was forced to enactment overnight owed to an unspecified aesculapian issue.

NASA’s SpaceX Crew-8 ngo splashed down astatine 3:29 a.m. ET connected Friday disconnected Pensacola, Florida, pursuing a astir eight-month-long enactment connected committee the International Space Station (ISS). The unit returned to Earth connected committee a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft which “executed a mean introduction and splashdown,” according to NASA. Rather than heading to NASA’s Johnson Space Center successful Houston, however, the four-person unit were flown unneurotic to Ascension Sacred Heart Pensacola infirmary successful Florida to acquisition aesculapian tests.

“The unit exited the Dragon spacecraft onto a betterment vessel for modular post-flight aesculapian evaluations,” NASA wrote successful a blog update. “Out of an abundance of caution, each unit members were flown to the installation together.” Three of the unit members departed the infirmary portion 1 unnamed astronaut stayed down for an overnight stay, presumably owed to a aesculapian issue. The individuality and specifics of the astronaut’s information were not shared by NASA to support their privacy.

Hospital officials released the astronaut the pursuing day, allowing a instrumentality to the Johnson Space Center to resume regular post-flight reconditioning with different unit members. NASA confirmed that the astronaut was successful “good health.” It’s inactive not wide whether the aesculapian contented was brought connected by the enactment successful orbit oregon the travel backmost to Earth, oregon possibly thing unrelated to their clip successful space. However, the information that each 4 unit members were taken to the infirmary for further aesculapian evaluations seems to suggest that the aesculapian contented was someway related to the travel backmost to Earth.

Crew-8 included NASA astronauts Matthew Dominick, Michael Barratt, and Jeanette Epps, arsenic good arsenic Roscosmos cosmonaut Alexander Grebenkin. The 4 astronauts spent a full of 232 days connected committee the ISS, traveling astir 100 cardinal miles and completing 3,760 orbits astir Earth portion conducting technological research, according to NASA.

NASA’s Crew-8 launched to the ISS connected March 4, but their instrumentality to Earth had been delayed for respective weeks due to the fact that of hurricane Milton, forcing the abstraction bureau to forgo an undocking effort connected October 7. The unit was primitively scheduled to instrumentality successful mid-August but NASA extended the ngo to support the Dragon spacecraft docked to the ISS for Starliner’s stranded astronauts successful lawsuit of an emergency.

Boeing’s spacecraft launched astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams successful June, but an empty Starliner returned to Earth successful September, leaving its unit down aft it was deemed unfit to instrumentality the astronauts to Earth. In the lawsuit of an exigency connected the ISS, the 2 astronauts would person needed the other country connected the Dragon spacecraft to structure successful place.

The delays to the crew’s instrumentality caused the astronauts to walk astir 8 months successful abstraction alternatively than the archetypal ngo timeline of six months. Space is simply a harsh situation that takes its toll connected the quality body, affecting bony and musculus density, vision, and adjacent causing astronauts to go much susceptible to infections connected committee the ISS. There’s intelligibly a batch much probe that needs to beryllium done connected astronaut wellness and ways to mitigate the harmful effects of abstraction connected the quality assemblage earlier astronauts marque the agelong trek to Mars.