SARS-CoV-2 Pandemic Impacts on NASA Ground Operations to Protect ISS Astronauts

Abstract

NASA implements required medical tests and clinical monitoring to ensure the health and safety of its astronauts. These measures include a pre-launch quarantine to mitigate the risk of infectious diseases. During space missions, most astronauts experience perturbations to their immune system that manifest as a detectable secondary immunodeficiency. On return to Earth, after the stress of re-entry and landing, astronauts would be most vulnerable to infectious disease. In April 2020, a crew returned from International Space Station to NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, during the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) pandemic. Post-flight quarantine protocols (both crew and contacts) were enhanced to protect this crew from SARS-CoV-2. In addition, specific additional clinical monitoring was performed to determine post-flight immunocompetence. Given that coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) prognosis is more severe for the immunocompromised, a countermeasures protocol for spaceflight suggested by an international team of scientists could benefit terrestrial patients with secondary immunodeficiency.

Keywords: COVID-19; Immune countermeasures; Immune dysregulation; NASA astronauts; SARS-CoV-2.

Figure 1

An astronaut who returned from the International Space Station on Soyuz 61S is cared for by support personnel wearing face masks, as part of the precautions in response to the COVID-19 global pandemic. NASA ID: NHQ202004170035.