Astronaut rushed to hospital after returning to Earth with mystery medical condition after extended space trip
26 October 2024, 08:33
An astronaut has been rushed to hospital after returning to Earth with an unexplained medical condition.
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The whole crew was taken to hospital out of precaution, but did not say if all or some of the astronauts had been suffering from the medical condition.
Other three crew members have since been discharged from hospital, NASA said.
The space agency said: "The one astronaut who remains at Ascension is in stable condition under observation as a precautionary measure."
SpaceX launched the four personnel - Nasa's Matthew Dominick, Michael Barratt and Jeanette Epps, and Russia's Alexander Grebenkin - in March.
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A SpaceX capsule carrying the crew parachuted before dawn into the Gulf of Mexico just off the Florida coast after undocking from the space station in midweek.
The three Americans and one Russian should have been back two months ago. But their homecoming was stalled by problems with Boeing's new Starliner astronaut capsule, which came back empty in September because of safety concerns.
Then Hurricane Milton interfered, followed by another two weeks of high wind and rough seas. This meant they were in space for almost eight months.
Mr Barratt, the only space veteran going into the mission, acknowledged the support teams back home that had "to replan, retool and kind of redo everything right along with us ... and helped us to roll with all those punches".
Their replacements are the two Starliner test pilots Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, whose own mission went from eight days to eight months, and two astronauts launched by SpaceX four weeks ago. Those four will remain up there until February.
The space station is now back to its normal crew size of seven - four Americans and three Russians - after months of overflow.
