Four astronauts returned to Earth early Friday morning, successfully splashing down in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Florida in a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft.
The Crew-8 mission -- NASA's Matthew Dominick, Michael Barratt and Jeanette Epps, and Russia's Alexander Grebenkin -- had launched to the International Space Station in March, spending a total of 236 days in space.
But, hours after the group safely returned and had standard post-flight medical evaluations, NASA said all four were flown to a local medical facility for an additional assessment.
"Out of an abundance of caution, all crew members were flown to the facility together. NASA will provide additional information as it becomes available," said Cheryl Warner, the space agency's news chief.
The SpaceX capsule's parachutes deployed and the spacecraft splashed down near Pensacola at 3:29 a.m. ET. Teams on SpaceX's recovery ship secured the spacecraft and hoisted it onto a recovery ship's main deck.
The plan was for the astronauts to undergo medical checks before a short helicopter trip and longer plane ride to the Texas-based Johnson Space Center.
At the end of their seven-and-a-half-month mission, NASA said that Crew-8 had orbited the Earth 3,776 times, traveling more than 100 million statute miles.
Seven Expedition 72 crew members -- a normal crew size -- remain on the orbiting laboratory after Endeavour's Wednesday departure. Dragon undocked from the space station at 5:05 p.m. on Wednesday.
The Crew-8 astronauts' return came after an extended stay following problems with Boeing's Starliner capsule and Hurricane Milton. They should have been back two months ago.
Barratt, the only space veteran going into the mission, previously said that the support teams back on Earth had "to replan, retool and kind of redo everything right along with us ... and helped us to roll with all those punches."
Starliner test pilots and NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, whose own mission went from eight days to eight months, will remain on the space station until February. They are assigned to the SpaceX Crew-9 mission.