A NASA astronaut is hospitalized after SpaceX returns to Earth

An astronaut with a “medical problem” was hospitalized early Friday after returning from the International Space Station, NASA said on Friday. Due to privacy, NASA did not identify the astronaut or provide details about the medical problem.

The hospitalized astronaut, who NASA said was “in stable condition under observation as a precaution,” was one of four astronauts who fell into the Gulf of Mexico near Pensacola, Florida, at 3:29 a.m. ET at the conclusion of the flight. Nearly eight months in space.

This mission, SpaceX's eighth operational flight for NASA, was known as Crew-8. The astronauts — Matthew Dominick, Michael Barratt and Janet Epps of NASA and Alexander Grebenkin of Russian space agency Roscosmos — launched in March as part of a regular six-month crew rotation on the International Space Station.

The docking and launch were canceled without any technical problems. In a video broadcast from the deck of the rescue ship, the astronauts appeared to exit the capsule without any problem, and then all four underwent initial health checks. During a press conference an hour and a half after their return, a NASA official said the crew was “in great shape.”

Later in the day, NASA issued an update stating that the four astronauts had been transferred to a Pensacola hospital as a precaution. Another update in the afternoon said three astronauts had returned to Houston.

Crew-8's mission has been extended for approximately two months. The postponements were triggered by problems with Boeing's troubled Starliner spacecraft, which occupied one of two available docking slots.

The Crew-8 astronauts were unable to return home because the SpaceX Dragon vehicle that carried them into orbit occupied a second docking port. That left no docking room for the Crew-9 mission that would bring the next group of space station astronauts in another Crew Dragon vehicle.

Thus the Crew-8 astronauts had to wait in space until after the Starliner departed.

NASA decided that the Starliner astronauts would remain in orbit as part of the space station crew, and the empty Starliner module successfully returned to Earth on September 6.

Crew-9 was launched with two other astronauts three weeks later, paving the way for the Crew-8 astronauts to finally return home.

Then the weather intervened, first with Hurricane Milton passing over Florida. Even after the hurricane passed, weather conditions around Florida remained unfavorable until Wednesday, when the Crew Dragon spacecraft separated with the four astronauts.