Washington DC [US], January 16: For the first time in the history of the International Space Station (ISS), the US space agency NASA has brought a crew of four astronauts back to Earth earlier than planned for medical reasons.
The astronauts splashed down in the sea off the coast of California at 0842 GMT on Thursday in a Crew Dragon capsule made by SpaceX, live images from NASA showed.
The US astronauts Zena Cardman and Michael Fincke, the Japanese astronaut Kimiya Yui and the Russian cosmonaut Oleg Platonov had been on board the ISS since the beginning of August and were supposed to stay there for a few more weeks.
Less than an hour after splashdown, the four astronauts were helped out of the capsule one by one to the cheers and applause of SpaceX employees on a ship. Before the crew was flown to the mainland, they first had to undergo a routine medical examination. Every stay in space is an enormous physical strain.
NASA said last week it had cancelled a spacewalk at short notice because of health concerns involving one crew member, before deciding to return the entire four-person crew to Earth ahead of schedule.
Source: Qatar Tribune