A crew of four astronauts landed back on Earth after departing the International Space Station on Wednesday in NASA's first-ever medical evacuation over an undisclosed ailment involving one of the crew members.
The astronauts undocked from the station at about 5:20 p.m. New York time in a SpaceX Dragon capsule and splashed down off the coast of California at around 3:41 a.m. on Thursday. The evacuation cuts the crew's expected stay on the ISS short by roughly a month.
In a press conference on Jan. 8, NASA's chief health and medical officer, James Polk, said that the astronaut was “absolutely stable” but the agency decided to return the team to Earth earlier than expected to conduct more rigorous medical screening for the crew member.
NASA first acknowledged the medical episode on Jan. 7, postponing a spacewalk because of a health issue. NASA would not disclose the name of the astronaut or the nature of the medical issue due to privacy concerns.
The four members of Crew-11 launched to the station in August for a mission that was expected to last about six months, the typical length of crewed trips to the station.
The Crew-11 team consists of NASA astronauts Zena Cardman and Mike Fincke, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's Kimiya Yui and Roscosmos cosmonaut Oleg Platonov.
Now that Crew-11 has left the space station, two Russian cosmonauts and NASA astronaut Christopher Williams are left on board.
The agency is working to accelerate the arrival of the next crew, which had been slated to launch in February and dock at the station before Crew-11 departed.
