NASA astronaut still hospitalized after returning from long stay on space station

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida, USA (AP) — A NASA astronaut was taken to the hospital with an undisclosed health problem after returning from the space station after a nearly eight-month stay extended by problems with the Boeing capsule and Hurricane Milton, the agency said Friday. .

A SpaceX capsule carrying three Americans and a Russian deployed its parachute before dawn in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Florida after undocked from the International Space Station midweek. The capsule was assembled on the rescue ship, where the four astronauts underwent routine medical examinations.

Shortly after landing, the NASA astronaut experienced a “health issue” and the crew was airlifted to a hospital in Pensacola, Florida, for additional evaluation “out of an abundance of caution,” the space agency detailed in a statement.

The astronaut, who was not identified, was in stable condition and remained in hospital as a “precautionary measure,” NASA said.

The space agency said it would not release details about the astronaut’s condition, citing patient confidentiality.

The remaining three astronauts were discharged and returned to NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.

It can take days or even weeks for astronauts to adjust to gravity after months of living in zero gravity.

The astronauts were supposed to return two months ago. But their return home was halted by problems with Boeing’s new Starliner astronaut capsule, which returned empty in September due to safety concerns. Then Hurricane Milton intervened, followed by two more weeks of high winds and rough seas.

In March, SpaceX delivered four crew members to the orbital station – NASA representatives Matthew Dominick, Michael Barratt and Jeanette Epps, as well as Russian cosmonaut Alexander Grebenkin. Barratt, the only one on the mission with previous experience in space, thanked the ground support teams who had to “rethink, retool and redo everything with us (…) and help us survive all these impacts.”

Their replacements will be two Starliner test pilots, Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, whose mission lasted between eight days and eight months, as well as two astronauts who flew with SpaceX four weeks ago. All four will stay on the ISS until February.

So after months of overcrowding, the space station crew is returning to its usual seven-member crew of four Americans and three Russians.