{"id":797879,"date":"2026-10-10T07:58:16","date_gmt":"2026-10-10T07:58:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/797879\/"},"modified":"2026-10-10T07:58:16","modified_gmt":"2026-10-10T07:58:16","slug":"four-astronauts-return-to-earth-from-iss-after-medical-relief-mission-international-space-station","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/797879\/","title":{"rendered":"Four astronauts return to Earth from ISS after medical relief mission | International Space Station"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"dcr-1s160rg\">Four astronauts returned to Earth from the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/science\/international-space-station\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" data-component=\"auto-linked-tag\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">International Space Station<\/a> on Thursday after hurrying there eight months ago to replace an ailing colleague and his crew.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-1s160rg\">SpaceX brought the US, French and Russian crew back with a splashdown in the Pacific off the coast of Los Angeles.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-1s160rg\">Nasa\u2019s Jessica Meir and Jack Hathaway, France\u2019s Sophie Adenot, and Russia\u2019s Andrey Fedyaev departed the orbiting lab on Wednesday, eager to reunite with their families after a lengthy separation. Their replacements arrived three weeks late because of capsule repairs, stalling this crew\u2019s homecoming.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-1s160rg\">They couldn\u2019t wait to feel the breeze on their faces, hit the shower and, for Adenot at least, plunge back into water sports.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-1s160rg\">\u201cWe are so excited to be back on Planet Earth after an incredible mission on the International <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/science\/space\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" data-component=\"auto-linked-tag\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Space<\/a> Station,\u201d Meir radioed moments after splashing down. While still in orbit, she said the crew had \u201ca lot of mixed, swirling emotions\u201d and would miss the \u201cextraordinary views of our home planet\u201d.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-1s160rg\">Meir and her crew left the planet in February to replace four station occupants who were sent home early after one of them \u2013 Nasa\u2019s Mike Fincke, now retired \u2013 fell ill. It was Nasa\u2019s first medical evacuation in 65 years of human spaceflight.<\/p>\n<p>The SpaceX Crew Dragon Freedom spacecraft splashes down in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Los Angeles, California, on Thursday. Photograph: Keegan Barber\/Nasa\/EPA<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-1s160rg\">Meir took part in four spacewalks, while Adenot ventured outside three times for maintenance and upgrades to the 28-year-old orbiting outpost.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-1s160rg\">Seven astronauts remain onboard the space station, representing the US, Russia and Canada. The outpost has welcomed 298 visitors from 26 countries since 2000, by Nasa\u2019s count.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Four astronauts returned to Earth from the International Space Station on Thursday after hurrying there eight months ago&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":797880,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[59,90,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-797879","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science","tag-gb","tag-science","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/797879","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=797879"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/797879\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/797880"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=797879"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=797879"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=797879"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}