NASA to quarantine astronauts for two weeks amid fears they might carry COVID-19 to International Space Station
On April 9, three astronauts will enter space, leaving behind the chaos unleashed by the new coronavirus. Joining them in May are two other astronauts. The virus has already gained a foothold in almost every part of the world. With two missions fast approaching, what is NASA doing to keep COVID-19 from striking astronauts at the International Space Station (ISS)?
Adhering to recommendations from the Centers for Disease Prevention and Control (CDC), NASA will quarantine its astronauts for two weeks before launch. "This ensures that they aren't sick or incubating an illness when they get to the space station and is called health stabilization," Courtney Beasley, communications specialist at NASA's Johnson Space Center, told CNN.
During quarantine, the astronauts will be housed in their crew quarters at Kennedy and Johnson Space Centers. "They don't have direct contact with anyone who has not been pre-cleared by NASA flight surgeons. The time is spent preparing for flight, studying and resting, as well as working out and making video calls to friends and family members," Beasley told CNN.
But NASA's astronauts are not new to quarantines. The space agency has always been taking stringent measures such as quarantining astronauts for long periods before they leave Earth.
The same applied to astronauts -- Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins, who were a part of the Apollo 11 Mission after returning from a mission to the Moon. NASA immediately stationed them at their Mobile Quarantine Facility, a converted Airstream trailer for weeks.
The pandemic is impacting space stations across the world. The French space agency CNES has also shut down launch operations. At the same time, Russia’s space agency Roscosmos said it was making changes to its 2020 launch program. NASA has asked its employees to now work remotely. It is implementing additional cleaning and social distancing measures as well.
“We are going to take care of our people. That’s our priority,” NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said in a statement. However, he added, it is difficult or impossible to comply with CDC guidelines while processing spaceflight hardware. So the agency will suspend work and focus on the mission-critical activities.
All eyes on the two upcoming missions
On April 9, NASA astronaut Chris Cassidy and two Roscosmos cosmonauts Anatoly Ivanishin and Ivan Vagner are scheduled for launch. On April 17, NASA astronauts Jessica Meir and Drew Morgan and Russian cosmonaut Oleg Skripochka will touchdown on Earth.
Commenting on the situation on Earth, Meir told Physiologist Magazine, "It is very strange and a bit surreal for us to be seeing it all unfold when we've been up here for the entire duration of what's been going on down on the ground. And it seems that we will be completely going back to a different planet."
The following month, in May, astronauts Doug Hurley and Robert Behnken will travel aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon commercial crew ship, the first private spacecraft. CBS News reported that both Hurley and Behnken are also taking steps to avoid exposure to the new coronavirus.
"We're kind of already in a quarantine bubble that includes the two of us and of course, by extension, our immediate families as well. We'll be leading up to launch kind of with similar precautions. It's not a lot different than what we would do for a crew that was going to launch on a Soyuz out of Baikonur (Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan), or what we did back when we launched on space shuttles," Behnken told CBS News.