NASA astronaut hospitalized after returning from the ISS
A NASA astronaut was transported to a hospital with an unspecified medical problem Friday shortly after returning to Earth from a nearly eight-month mission on the International Space Station, the U.S. space agency said.
The astronaut, who NASA did not name for privacy reasons, had splashed down off the coast of Florida at 07:29 GMT Friday aboard SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule with three other crew members: two NASA astronauts and a Russian cosmonaut.
The crew consisted of U.S. astronauts Matthew Dominick, Michael Barratt and Jeanette Epps, and Russian cosmonaut Alexander Grebenkin. Their 235 days in space exceeded the usual six-month duration of the ISS and marked the longest stay in orbit for SpaceX’s Crew Dragon reusable spacecraft.
NASA initially said the entire crew was moved to the medical center for further evaluation and as a precaution, but did not specify whether all had been experiencing problems.
NASA later said that one of its astronauts had experienced a medical problem and that the crew had been transferred to a hospital in Pensacola, Florida. The other three crew members have already left the hospital and returned to Houston, the space agency said.
“The astronaut remaining at Ascension Sacred Heart Hospital in Pensacola is stable and under observation as a precautionary measure,” NASA said in a statement, adding that it would not share the nature of the astronaut’s condition.
Russia’s space agency, Roscosmos, posted on the social messaging platform Telegram a photo of Grebenkin upright and smiling, with a caption that read, “After a space mission and a splashdown, cosmonaut Alexander Grebenkin is feeling great!”
The crew’s return from the ISS had been delayed for weeks due to two hurricanes that swept through the southeastern United States near Crew Dragon’s planned splashdown areas.
SpaceX maintains a fleet of reusable spacecraft and has flown to the ISS 44 times. The Elon Musk-owned company remains the only U.S. option for NASA astronaut travel to and from the ISS.
Crew’s Crew Dragon reusable spacecraft was on its fifth flight, logging 702 days in orbit since its first mission, SpaceX Vice President of Flight Reliability William Gerstenmaier, a former top NASA official, told reporters during the news conference.