Four 'Cru-8' astronauts on ISS return to Earth after 8 months

Four astronauts on the ISS, NASA and SpaceX's Crew-8 missions have returned to Earth safely.

SpaceX's space capsule Dragon carrying the Crew-8 flight team successfully landed in waters near Pensacola, Florida at 3:29 a.m. local time on the 25th.

As a result, the Crew-8 flight team, consisting of three NASA members and one Russian Federal Space Agency member, left Earth on March 3 and returned about eight months after a 232-day stay on the ISS.

The typical ISS stay for astronauts is about five to seven months, but the Crew-8 flight team has unexpectedly delayed its return schedule by more than a month.

Boeing's Starliner, which took NASA astronauts on a test flight to the ISS in June, was unable to return astronauts due to a faulty fuselage, delaying the takeoff of its later shift team, Crew-9, to resolve the issue, pushing back the Crew-8 return schedule.

In addition, two hurricanes made landfall in Florida from late last month to early this month, continuing to delay the return schedule due to worsening weather conditions.

NASA said the astronauts were taken to medical facilities for medical evaluations after falling into Florida's waters.

The transfer of astronauts to medical facilities was an unannounced procedure, but NASA did not disclose specific reasons.

In NASA's live return video, all four astronauts smiled and waved as they got off the Dragon capsule and boarded the recovery ship.

NASA usually does not disclose information about astronauts' medical problems, Reuters said.

Since the retirement of its own space shuttles in 2011, NASA has started a private manned transport program to send astronauts to the ISS in cooperation with private space companies to reduce their dependence on Russian rockets and spacecraft.

To this end, NASA signed a contract with Boeing and SpaceX in 2014 to develop manned spacecraft for $4.2 billion (about 5.5209 trillion won) and $2.6 billion (about 3.4177 trillion won), respectively, and SpaceX is currently working on its ninth manned transport flight, Crew-9, with SpaceX as it succeeded in developing a manned capsule drag.