Four astronauts aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule are slated to splash down early Thursday within the Pacific Ocean, ending a weeklong effort to get an unnamed crew member home to judge a medical issue.
The crew left the International Space Station at 5:20 p.m. ET Wednesday aboard the spacecraft and are on a 10-hour journey, step by step decreasing in altitude and making ready to reenter Earth’s environment.
The astronauts, a part of a mission known as Crew-11, are scheduled to splash down round 3:40 a.m ET Thursday off the coast of California.
NASA made the choice to carry the crew home final week after it introduced it was canceling a deliberate spacewalk as a result of a medical issue.
“This is not an injury that occurred in the pursuit of operations,” stated Dr. James Polk, chief well being and medical officer at NASA headquarters, throughout a January 8 information convention.
Rather, the issue pertains to having a “medical issue in the difficult areas of microgravity,” Polk added, noting that NASA wished to carry the astronaut home to utilize diagnostic instruments. While the International Space Station does have a set of medical tools, it doesn’t have all of the instruments a typical emergency room would have.
NASA’s Mike Fincke and Zena Cardman would have carried out the spacewalk that was canceled — each are members of the Crew-11 workforce. The duo is returning home alongside crewmates Kimiya Yui of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, or JAXA, and Russian cosmonaut Oleg Platonov of Roscosmos.
NASA has not disclosed which crew member has the medical issue, nor has the company revealed particulars concerning the nature of that crewmate’s situation aside from to say the individual is in secure situation and wouldn’t require particular preparations for the return journey. Typically, medical info is saved confidential to make sure an astronaut’s privateness.
The journey home can take a toll on astronauts’ our bodies; the g-forces skilled because the Crew Dragon capsule dives again towards Earth can attain greater than 5 instances the drive of Earth’s gravity.
The mission’s last stretch can also be among the many most harmful because the Crew Dragon capsule reenters the environment at greater than 22 instances the velocity of sound. The course of can warmth the outside of the returning spacecraft to greater than 3,500 levels Fahrenheit (1,926 levels Celsius), making a buildup of plasma and triggering a communication blackout.
After the capsule splashes down within the Pacific, restoration ships will probably be ready close by to carry it out of the water. Once on board, the crew members will possible exit their capsule aboard medical stretchers — a typical follow for transporting astronauts after they return to Earth and start readjusting to gravity. Using a stretcher isn’t an indicator of whether or not an astronaut is experiencing a severe medical situation.
But NASA stated the affected astronaut will probably be present process a medical workup upon the return to Earth.
Crew-11 initially had been slated to depart the area station in mid-February, solely after a alternative workforce — the Crew-12 astronauts — would have arrived to take over operations.
The Crew-11 astronauts’ untimely departure leaves the soccer field-size area station with three workers members: two Russian cosmonauts, Sergey Kud-Sverchkov and Sergei Mikaev, in addition to NASA astronaut Chris Williams, who traveled to the orbiting laboratory as a part of a rideshare settlement with Russia.
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