By james art A SpaceX capsule carrying three Americans and a Russian parachuted before dawn into the Gulf of Mexico just off the coast of Florida after detaching from the International Space Station midweek.
Shortly after the crash, NASA said one of its astronauts had a “medical problem” and was transported to a hospital in Pensacola, Florida, as a precaution.
The astronaut, who has not been identified, is in stable condition and remains in the hospital as a “precautionary measure,” the space agency said.
The rest returned to Houston.
It can take days or even weeks for astronauts to adjust to gravity after living in weightlessness for several months.
The astronauts were due to return two months ago, but their return was halted due to problems with the new Boeing Starliner astronaut capsule, which returned empty in September due to safety concerns.
Then Hurricane Milton hit, followed by another two weeks of high winds and rough seas.
SpaceX launched the four — NASA’s Matthew Dominick, Michael Barratt and Jeanette Epps, and Russia’s Alexander Grebenkin — in March.
Mr. Barratt, the only space veteran who served on the mission, credited the support teams back home who had to “replan, retool and kind of rework everything right with us … and helped us through all these hits.”
Their replacements are the two Starliner test pilots Butch Wilmore and Sunny Williams, whose own mission lasted from eight days to eight months, and two astronauts launched by SpaceX four weeks ago. These four will remain there until February.
The space station is now back to its normal crew of seven — four Americans and three Russians — after months of overcrowding.