A NASA astronaut was taken to a hospital with unexplained medical problems shortly after returning to Earth from a nearly eight-month mission aboard the International Space Station, the space agency announced Friday.
The astronaut, whose name NASA did not release for privacy reasons, was taken to the hospital at 3:29 a.m. ET on Friday by three other cosmonauts, two NASA astronauts, and a Russian cosmonaut. He and his crew landed in a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule off the coast of Florida.
The crew included American astronauts Matthew Dominick, Michael Barratt, and Janet Epps and Russian cosmonaut Alexander Grebenkin. Their stay in space was 235 days, longer than the ISS’s typical six-month mission period, and the longest stay in orbit for SpaceX’s reusable Crew Dragon spacecraft.
NASA initially said all crew members were taken to a medical center for further testing out of an abundance of caution, but it remains unclear whether all or some of the crew members had problems. They didn’t make it clear.
NASA later announced that one of the astronauts experienced a medical issue and the crew was taken to a hospital in Pensacola, Florida, near the splashdown site. The other three crew members have since been discharged from the hospital and returned to Houston, the space agency said.
“The one remaining astronaut on board Ascension is under observation as a precaution and in stable condition,” NASA said in a statement, referring to Ascension Sacred Heart Pensacola Hospital. The agency said it would not release the nature of the astronaut’s condition.
Russia’s space agency Roscosmos posted a photo of Grebenkin standing upright and smiling on the social messaging platform Telegram with the caption: “After space mission and splashdown, cosmonaut Alexander Grebenkin feels great!” I added.
The crew’s return from a soccer field-sized science lab 450 miles above orbit was delayed by weeks due to two hurricanes that struck near Crew Dragon’s expected splashdown zone in the southeastern United States. was.
SpaceX has a fleet of reusable spacecraft and has flown to the ISS 44 times. The Elon Musk-owned company remains America’s only option for NASA astronauts’ trips to and from the ISS. Boeing’s Starliner, intended as a second vehicle in the United States, hampered by long-standing development issues.
Crew Dragon safely undocked from the ISS on Wednesday afternoon and re-entered Earth’s atmosphere early Friday morning, deploying its parachute and plunging into the Gulf of Mexico.
At a press conference after the crash, NASA officials said, “The crew is doing well,” and made no mention of any problems with the astronauts. He pointed to two problems with Crew Dragon’s parachute deployment.
Richard Jones, deputy manager for NASA’s commercial crew program, said Crew Dragon’s first set of braking parachutes suffered a “debris strike” that prevented one of the four parachutes in the subsequent set from deploying. He said it took longer than expected.
Neither incident affected the safety of the crew, Jones said, adding that the splashdown weather was “ideal” for the crew’s recovery.
The crew’s reusable Crew Dragon spacecraft is on its fifth flight and has been in orbit for 702 days since its first mission, said William Gerstenmeyer, SpaceX’s vice president of flight reliability and a former senior NASA official. said at a press conference.
Source: www.nbcnews.com
