NASA Astronaut Hospitalized after Return from Space Station

FILE PHOTO: The NASA logo is seen at Kennedy Space Center ahead of the NASA/SpaceX launch of a commercial crew mission to the International Space Station in Cape Canaveral, Florida, US, April 16, 2021. REUTERS/Joe Skipper/File Photo

Asharq Al Awsat

14:26-26 October 2024 AD ـ 23 Rabi’ Al-Thani 1446 AH

Asharq Al Awsat

14:26-26 October 2024 AD ـ 23 Rabi’ Al-Thani 1446 AH

NASA Astronaut Hospitalized after Return from Space Station

A NASA astronaut was flown to a hospital with an unspecified medical issue on Friday shortly after returning to Earth from a nearly eight-month mission on the International Space Station, the US space agency said.

The astronaut, who NASA did not name for privacy reasons, had splashed down off Florida's coast at 3:29 a.m. ET (0729 GMT) on Friday aboard SpaceX's Crew Dragon capsule with three other crew members - two NASA astronauts and a Russian cosmonaut, according to Reuters.

The crew included US astronauts Matthew Dominick, Michael Barratt, and Jeanette Epps, and Russian cosmonaut Alexander Grebenkin. Their 235 days in space made it longer than the usual six-month ISS mission duration and marked the longest stay in orbit for SpaceX's reusable Crew Dragon spacecraft.

NASA initially said the entire crew was transported to the medical center for additional evaluation and out of an abundance of caution, but did not specify whether all or a portion of the crew had been experiencing issues.

NASA later said it was one of its astronauts who experienced a medical issue and that the crew had been flown to a hospital in Pensacola, Florida, near the splashdown site. The three other crew members have since left the hospital and returned to Houston, the space agency said.

"The one astronaut who remains at Ascension is in stable condition under observation as a precautionary measure," NASA said in a statement, referring to Ascension Sacred Heart Pensacola hospital. The agency said it will not share the nature of the astronaut's condition.

Russia's space agency, Roscosmos, posted on the social messaging platform Telegram a photo of Grebenkin standing upright and smiling, with a caption reading: "After a space mission and splashdown, cosmonaut Alexander Grebenkin feels great!"

The crew's return from the football field-sized science lab 250 miles up in orbit had been delayed for weeks because of two hurricanes that swept through the US southeast near Crew Dragon's expected splashdown zones.

SpaceX maintains a fleet of reusable spacecraft and has flown to the ISS 44 times. The Elon Musk-owned company remains the only US option for NASA astronaut trips to and from the ISS. Boeing's (BA.N), Starliner, intended as a second US ride, has been hobbled by years of development issues.

Crew Dragon safely undocked from the ISS on Wednesday afternoon and reentered Earth's atmosphere early Friday morning, deploying parachutes before plunking into the Gulf of Mexico.

At a post-splashdown news briefing, a NASA official said "the crew is doing great" and made no mention of any issues with the astronauts. He noted two hitches with Crew Dragon's parachute deployment.

Richard Jones, deputy manager of NASA's Commercial Crew Program, said Crew Dragon's initial set of braking parachutes suffered some "debris strikes" and that one of four parachutes in a subsequent set took longer than expected to unfurl.

Neither event affected crew safety, Jones said, calling the splashdown weather "ideal" for the crew's recovery.

The crew's reusable Crew Dragon spacecraft was on its fifth flight, logging 702 days in orbit since its first mission, SpaceX's vice president of flight reliability, William Gerstenmaier, a former senior NASA official, told reporters during the news conference.

Scientists Gather to Decode Puzzle of the World’s Rarest Whale in ‘Extraordinary’ New Zealand Study

A handout photo taken on July 5, 2024 and received on July 16 from the New Zealand Department of Conservation shows rangers Jim Fyfe (L) and Tumai Cassidy walking beside what appears to be the carcass of a rare spade-toothed whale after it was discovered washed ashore on a beach near Taieri Mouth in New Zealand's southern Otago province. (Handout / New Zealand Department of Conservation / AFP)

09:40-2 December 2024 AD ـ 01 Jumada Al-Alkhirah 1446 AH

Scientists Gather to Decode Puzzle of the World’s Rarest Whale in ‘Extraordinary’ New Zealand Study

It is the world’s rarest whale, with only seven of its kind ever spotted. Almost nothing is known about the enigmatic species. But on Monday a small group of scientists and cultural experts in New Zealand clustered around a near-perfectly preserved spade-toothed whale hoping to decode decades of mystery.

“I can’t tell you how extraordinary it is,” said a joyful Anton van Helden, senior marine science adviser for New Zealand’s conservation agency, who gave the spade-toothed whale its name to distinguish it from other beaked species. “For me personally, it’s unbelievable.”

Van Helden has studied beaked whales for 35 years, but Monday was the first time he has participated in a dissection of the spade-toothed variety. In fact, the careful study of the creature -- which washed up dead on a New Zealand beach in July — is the first ever to take place.

None has ever been seen alive at sea.

The list of what scientists don’t know about spade-toothed whales is longer than what they do know. They don’t know where in the ocean the whales live, why they’ve never been spotted in the wild, or what their brains look like. All beaked whales have different stomach systems and researchers don’t know how the spade-toothed kind processes its food. They don’t know how this one died.

Over the next week, researchers studying the 5-meter (16-foot) -long male at an agricultural research center near the city of Dunedin hope to find out.

“There may be parasites completely new to science that just live in this whale,” said van Helden, who thrilled at the chance of learning how the species produces sound and what it eats. “Who knows what we’ll discover?”

Only six other spade-toothed whales have ever been found, but all those discovered intact were buried before DNA testing could verify their identification.

New Zealand is a whale-stranding hotspot, with more than 5,000 episodes recorded since 1840, according to the Department of Conservation. The first spade-toothed whale bones were found in 1872 on New Zealand’s Pitt Island. Another discovery was made at an offshore island in the 1950s, and the bones of a third were found on Chile’s Robinson Crusoe Island in 1986.

DNA sequencing in 2002 proved that all three specimens were of the same species — and that it was distinct from other beaked whales. But researchers studying the mammal couldn’t confirm whether the species was extinct until 2010, when two whole spade-toothed whales, both dead, washed up on a New Zealand beach. But none has been studied before.

On Monday, the seventh of its kind, surrounded by white-aproned scientists who were measuring and photographing, appeared relatively unblemished, giving no clue about its death. Researchers pointed out marks from cookiecutter sharks — normal, they said, and not the cause.

The dissection will be quiet, methodical and slower than usual, because it is being undertaken in partnership with Māori, New Zealand's Indigenous people. To Māori, whales are a taonga -– a precious treasure -– and the creature will be treated with the reverence afforded to an ancestor.

Members of the local iwi, or tribe, will be present throughout the dissection and consulted at each turn, allowing them to share traditional knowledge and observe customs, such as saying a karakia -– a prayer -– over the creature before the study begins.

“According to our beliefs and our traditions, this whale is a gift of Tangaroa, deity of the ocean,” said Tumai Cassidy from the local people Te Rūnanga Ōtākou. “It’s very important for us to respect that gift and to honor the whale.”

The iwi will keep the jawbone and teeth of the whale at the end of the dissection, before its skeleton is displayed in a museum. 3D printing will be used to replicate those parts, using a CT scan taken of the whale’s head this week.

“It all builds a richer picture for that species but also tells us how it interacts with our oceans,” Cassidy said.

It’s thought that spade-toothed whales live in the vast Southern Pacific Ocean, home to some of the world’s deepest ocean trenches. Beaked whales are the ocean's deepest divers for food, and the spade-toothed may rarely surface, adding to its mystery.

The assembled scientists on Monday included a few who had traveled from abroad to see the whale, which was put in refrigerated storage after its discovery.

“What we are interested in is not only how these animals died, but how they lived,” said Joy Reidenberg, a comparative anatomist from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York. “In discovering how they live, we are hoping to find discoveries that we can apply back to the human condition.”

NASA Astronaut Hospitalized after Return from Space Station

NASA Astronaut Hospitalized after Return from Space Station

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Scientists Gather to Decode Puzzle of the World’s Rarest Whale in ‘Extraordinary’ New Zealand Study

Scientists Gather to Decode Puzzle of the World’s Rarest Whale in ‘Extraordinary’ New Zealand Study

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