spacetoday.net: Crew-8 astronaut hospitalized after splashdown

Posted: Sat, Oct 26, 2024, 8:09 AM ET (1209 GMT)
Crew Dragon after Crew-8 splashdown (NASA)

An astronaut on a Crew Dragon spacecraft was hospitalized after the spacecraft returned to Earth Friday to complete a record-setting mission. The Crew Dragon spacecraft Endeavour splashed down off the coast of Pensacola, Florida, at 3:29 am EDT (0729 GMT) to end the Crew-8 mission, bringing back three NASA astronauts and one Roscosmos cosmonaut from the International Space Station. NASA later said that the four crewmembers were taken to a Pensacola hospital for additional medical checks and one was hospitalize din stable condition for an unspecified medical issue. NASA did not disclose the identity of the NASA astronaut who was hospitalized, and the other three returned to Houston. The mission spent 235 days in space, the longest for a crewed American spacecraft thanks to delays in both the launch of the Crew-9 mission and nearly three weeks of weather-related delays for splashdown. The Crew Dragon performed well despite that extended stay in orbit.