Amid growing concerns over Sunita Williams' health, NASA recently clarified that all the astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS) are in "good health".
A spokesperson for NASA's Space Operations Mission Directorate, Jimi Russell, told Daily Mail that all the NASA astronauts aboard ISS undergo routine medical evaluations and are monitored by dedicated flight surgeons.
"All are in good health," he said.
The space agency's statement comes amid media reports claiming that Williams is facing a health crisis after a prolonged stay on the ISS.
A picture of the NASA astronaut assembling a pepperoni pizza is also doing rounds on social media wherein it looks like she has lost a significant amount of weight. According to a Seattle-based pulmonologist, Williams looks "gaunt" in the picture, adding that she seems to be experiencing the natural stresses of living at a very high altitude for extended periods.
"Her cheeks appear a bit sunken and usually it happens when you've had sort of total body weight loss. 'I think what I can discern by her face and her cheeks being sunken in is that she has probably been at a significant calorie deficit for a while," the doctor told Daily Mail.
Williams and her fellow astronaut Barry Wilmore have been at the ISS since June. What was supposed to be an eight-day ISS mission, stretched into months due to a Starliner spacecraft malfunction. The astronauts will now return home in February next year.
On October 26, a NASA astronaut - part of the Crew-8, was hospitalised after returning from a nearly eight-month deployment on the ISS. According to NASA, astronauts Matthew Dominick, Michael Barratt, Jeanette Epps, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Alexander Grebenkin were flown together to Ascension Sacred Heart Pensacola in Florida. After a medical evaluation at the hospital, one of the astronauts was kept under observation as a precautionary measure. However, the details of the astronaut were not revealed to protect the crew member's medical privacy, NASA said.
The astronaut was released a day after in "good health", the US space agency said.
