Nasa astronaut hospitalised after return from space station
The crew, which splashed down on Earth in a SpaceX capsule, had spent nearly eight months in orbit
A Nasa astronaut was flown to a hospital with an unspecified medical issue on Friday shortly after returning to Earth from a nearly eight-month mission on the International Space Station, the US space agency said.
The astronaut, who Nasa did not name for privacy reasons, had splashed down off Florida’s coast at 3.29am on Friday aboard SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule with three other crew members – two Nasa astronauts and a Russian cosmonaut.
The crew included US astronauts Matthew Dominick, Michael Barratt, and Jeanette Epps, and Russian cosmonaut Alexander Grebenkin. Their 235 days in space made it longer than the usual six-month ISS mission duration and marked the longest stay in orbit for SpaceX’s reusable Crew Dragon spacecraft.
Nasa initially said the entire crew was transported to the medical centre for additional evaluation and out of an abundance of caution, but did not specify whether all or a portion of the crew had been experiencing issues.
Nasa later said it was one of its astronauts who experienced a medical issue and that the crew had been flown to a hospital in Pensacola, Florida, near the splashdown site. The three other crew members have since left the hospital and returned to Houston, the space agency said.
“The one astronaut who remains at Ascension is in stable condition under observation as a precautionary measure,” Nasa said in a statement, referring to Ascension Sacred Heart Pensacola hospital. The agency said it will not share the nature of the astronaut’s condition.
