{"id":281017,"date":"2025-09-09T20:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-09-09T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nasa.gov\/?p=910229"},"modified":"2025-09-09T20:00:00","modified_gmt":"2025-09-09T10:00:00","slug":"life-after-microgravity-astronauts-reflect-on-post-flight-recovery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/?p=281017","title":{"rendered":"Life After Microgravity: Astronauts Reflect on Post-Flight Recovery\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"

Space changes you. It strengthens some muscles, weakens others, shifts fluids within your body, and realigns your sense of balance. NASA\u2019s Human Research Program<\/strong><\/a> works to understand\u2014and sometimes even counter\u2014those changes so astronauts can thrive on future deep space missions.  <\/p>\n

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\"An<\/a><\/figure>
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NASA astronaut Loral O’Hara pedals on the Cycle Ergometer Vibration Isolation System (CEVIS) inside the International Space Station’s Destiny laboratory module.<\/div>\n
NASA<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Astronauts aboard the International Space Station work out roughly two hours a day to protect bone density, muscle strength and the cardiovascular system, but the longer they are in microgravity, the harder it can be for the brain and body to readapt to gravity\u2019s pull. After months in orbit, returning astronauts often describe Earth as heavy, loud, and strangely still. Some reacclimate within days, while other astronauts take longer to fully recover.<\/p>\n

Adjusting to Gravity\u00a0<\/strong>\u00a0<\/p>\n

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NASA\u2019s SpaceX Crew-7 astronaut Jasmin Moghbeli after landing in the Gulf of America on March 12, 2024, completing 197 days in space.<\/div>\n
NASA\/Joel Kowsky<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

The crew of NASA\u2019s SpaceX Crew-7 mission\u2014 NASA astronaut Jasmin Moghbeli, ESA (European Space Agency) astronaut Andreas Mogensen, JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) astronaut Satoshi Furukawa, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Konstantin Borisov\u2014landed in March 2024 after nearly 200 days in space. One of the first tests volunteer crew members completed was walking with their eyes open and then closed.  <\/p>\n

\u201cWith eyes closed, it was almost impossible to walk in a straight line,\u201d Mogensen said. In space, vision is the primary way astronauts orient themselves, but back on Earth, the brain must relearn how to use inner-ear balance signals. Moghbeli joked her first attempt at the exercise looked like \u201ca nice tap dance.\u201d   <\/p>\n

\u201cI felt very wobbly for the first two days,\u201d Moghbeli said. \u201cMy neck was very tired from holding up my head.\u201d She added that, overall, her body readapted to gravity quickly.  <\/p>\n

Astronauts each recover on their own timetable and may encounter different challenges. Mogensen said his coordination took time to return. Furukawa noted that he could not look down without feeling nauseated. \u201cDay by day, I recovered and got more stable,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

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NASA astronaut Loral O’Hara after landing in a remote area near the town of Zhezkazgan, Kazakhstan, on April 6, 2024.<\/div>\n
NASA\/Bill Ingalls<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

NASA astronaut Loral O\u2019Hara returned in April 2024 after 204 days in space. She said she felt almost completely back to normal a week after returning to Earth. O\u2019Hara added that her prior experience as an ocean engineer gave her insight into space missions. \u201cHaving those small teams in the field working with a team somewhere else back on shore with more resources is a good analog for the space station and all the missions we\u2019re hoping to do in the future,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n

NASA astronaut Nichole Ayers, who flew her first space mission with NASA\u2019s SpaceX Crew-10, noted that the brain quickly adapts to weightlessness by tuning out the vestibular system, which controls balance. \u201cThen, within days of being back on Earth, it remembers again\u2014it\u2019s amazing how fast the body readjusts,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n

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Expedition 69 NASA astronaut Frank Rubio outside the Soyuz MS-23 spacecraft after landing near the town of Zhezkazgan, Kazakhstan, on Sept. 27, 2023. <\/div>\n
NASA\/Bill Ingalls<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

When NASA astronaut Frank Rubio landed in Kazakhstan in September 2023, he had just completed a record 371-day mission\u2014the longest single U.S. spaceflight.  <\/p>\n

Rubio said his body adjusted to gravity right away, though his feet and lower back were sore after more than a year without weight on them. Thanks to consistent workouts, Rubio said he felt mostly recovered within a couple of weeks.  <\/p>\n

Mentally, extending his mission from six months to a year was a challenge. \u201cIt was a mixed emotional roller coaster,\u201d he said, but regular video calls with family kept him grounded. \u201cIt was almost overwhelming how much love and support we received.\u201d <\/p>\n

Crew-8 astronauts Matt Dominick, Jeanette Epps, Michael Barratt, and cosmonaut Alexander Grebenkin splashed down in October 2024 after 235 days on station. Dominick found sitting on hard surfaces uncomfortable at first. Epps felt the heaviness of Earth immediately. \u201cYou have to move and exercise every day, regardless of how exhausted you feel,\u201d she said.  <\/p>\n

Barratt, veteran astronaut and board certified in internal and aerospace medicine, explained that recovery differs for each crew member, and that every return teaches NASA something new. <\/p>\n

Still a Challenge, Even for Space Veterans <\/strong> <\/p>\n

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\"A<\/a><\/figure>
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NASA astronaut Suni Williams is helped out of a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft aboard the SpaceX recovery ship after splashing down off the coast of Tallahassee, Florida, March 18, 2025. <\/div>\n
NASA\/Keegan Barber<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Veteran NASA astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore returned from a nine-month mission with Crew-9 in early 2025. Despite her extensive spaceflight experience, Williams said re-adapting to gravity can still be tough. \u201cThe weight and heaviness of things is surprising,\u201d she said. Like others, she pushed herself to move daily to regain strength and balance.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

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NASA astronaut Don Pettit arrives at Ellington Field in Houston on April 20, 2025, after returning to Earth aboard the Soyuz MS-25 spacecraft. <\/div>\n
NASA\/Robert Markowitz<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

NASA astronaut Don Pettit, also a veteran flyer, came home in April 2025 after 220 days on the space station. At 70 years old, he is NASA\u2019s oldest active astronaut\u2014but experience did not make gravity gentler.  During landing, he says he was kept busy, \u201cemptying the contents of my stomach onto the steppes of Kazakhstan.\u201d Microgravity had eased the aches in his joints and muscles, but Earth\u2019s pull brought them back all at once.  <\/p>\n

Pettit said his recovery felt similar to earlier missions. \u201cI still feel like a little kid inside,\u201d he said. The hardest part, he explained, isn\u2019t regaining strength in big muscle groups, but retraining the small, often-overlooked muscles unused in space. \u201cIt\u2019s a learning process to get used to gravity again.\u201d  <\/p>\n

Recovery happens day by day\u2014with help from exercise, support systems, and a little humor. No matter how long an astronaut is in space, every journey back to Earth is unique. <\/p>\n

The Human Research Program help scientists understand how spaceflight environments affect astronaut health and performance and informs strategies to keep crews healthy for future missions to the Moon, Mars, and beyond. The program studies astronauts before, during, and after spaceflight<\/a> to learn how the human body adapts to living and working in space. It also collects data through Earth-based analog missions that can help keep astronauts safer for future space exploration.  <\/p>\n

To learn more about how microgravity affects the human body and develop new ways to help astronauts stay healthy, for example, its scientists conduct bedrest studies \u2013 asking dozens of volunteers to spend 60 days in bed with their heads tilted down at a specific angle.  Lying in this position tricks the body into responding as it would if the body was in space which allows scientists to trial interventions<\/a> to hopefully counter some of microgravity\u2019s effects.  Such studies, through led by NASA, occur at the German Aerospace Center\u2019s Cologne campus at a facility called :envihab<\/a> \u2013 a combination of \u201cenvironment\u201d and \u201chabitat.\u201d  <\/p>\n

Additional Earth-based insights come from the Crew Health and Performance Exploration Analog (CHAPEA) and the Human Exploration Research Analog (HERA) at NASA\u2019s Johnson Space Center in Houston. Both analogs recreate the remote conditions and scenarios of deep space exploration here on Earth with volunteer crews who agree to live and work in the isolation of ground-based habitats and endure challenges like delayed communication that simulates the type of interactions that will occur during deep space journeys to and from Mars. Findings from these ground-based missions and others will help NASA refine its future interventions, strategies, and protocols for astronauts in space. <\/p>\n

NASA and its partners have supported humans continuously living and working in space since November 2000. After nearly 25 years of continuous human presence, the space station remains the sole space-based proving ground for training and research for deep space missions, enabling NASA\u2019s Artemis campaign, lunar exploration, and future Mars missions.<\/em> <\/p>\n

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Space changes you. It strengthens some muscles, weakens others, shifts fluids within your body, and realigns your sense of balance. NASA\u2019s Human Research Program works to understand\u2014and sometimes even counter\u2014those changes so astronauts can thrive on future deep space missions.\u00a0\u00a0 Astronauts aboard the International Space Station work out roughly two hours a day to protect [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15606],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-281017","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281017","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=281017"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281017\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":281149,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281017\/revisions\/281149"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=281017"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=281017"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=281017"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}