{"id":285287,"date":"2026-01-15T06:40:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-15T06:40:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/285287\/"},"modified":"2026-01-15T06:40:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-15T06:40:07","slug":"iss-astronauts-begin-journey-back-to-earth-in-nasas-first-ever-medical-evacuation-space","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/285287\/","title":{"rendered":"ISS astronauts begin journey back to Earth in Nasa\u2019s first ever medical evacuation | Space"},"content":{"rendered":"

Four crew members have left the International Space Station (ISS) and are heading back to Earth after a medical issue prompted their mission to be cut a month short in Nasa\u2019s first medical evacuation<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A video feed from Nasa<\/a> showed American astronauts Mike Fincke and Zena Cardman, Russian cosmonaut Oleg Platonov and Japanese astronaut Kimiya Yui undocking from the ISS at 2220 GMT on Wednesday, after five months in space.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur timing of this departure is unexpected,\u201d Cardman said before the return trip, \u201cbut what was not surprising to me was how well this crew came together as a family to help each other and just take care of each other.\u201d<\/p>\n

The US space agency has declined to disclose which crew member has the health problem or give details about the issue, but it has stressed the return is not an emergency.<\/p>\n

The affected crew member \u201cwas and continues to be in stable condition\u201d, Nasa<\/a> official Rob Navias said on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

The SpaceX Dragon capsule carrying the four crew members is scheduled to splash down off the California coast at around 0840 GMT on Thursday.<\/p>\n

\u201cFirst and foremost, we are all OK. Everyone on board is stable, safe, and well cared for,\u201d Fincke, the pilot of SpaceX Crew-11, said in a recent social media post.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis was a deliberate decision to allow the right medical evaluations to happen on the ground, where the full range of diagnostic capability exists. It\u2019s the right call, even if it\u2019s a bit bittersweet.\u201d<\/p>\n

Computer modelling predicted a medical evacuation from the space station every three years, but Nasa hasn\u2019t had one in its 65 years of human spaceflight. The Russians have not been as fortunate. In 1985, Soviet cosmonaut Vladimir Vasyutin came down with a serious infection or related illness aboard his country\u2019s Salyut 7 space station, prompting an early return. A few other Soviet cosmonauts encountered less serious health issues that shortened their flights.<\/p>\n

The Crew-11 quartet arrived at the ISS in early August and had been scheduled to stay onboard the space station until they were rotated out in mid-February with the arrival of the next crew.<\/p>\n

James Polk, Nasa\u2019s chief health and medical officer, said \u201clingering risk\u201d and a \u201clingering question as to what that diagnosis is\u201d led to the decision to bring back the crew earlier than originally scheduled.<\/p>\n

American astronaut Chris Williams and Russian cosmonauts Sergey Kud-Sverchkov and Sergei Mikaev, who arrived at the station in November aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft, are remaining on the ISS.<\/p>\n

Until SpaceX delivers another crew, Nasa said it would have to stand down from any routine or even emergency spacewalks, a two-person job requiring backup help from crew inside the orbiting complex.<\/p>\n

The Russian Roscosmos space agency operates alongside Nasa on the outpost, and the two agencies take turns transporting a citizen of the other country to and from the orbiter \u2013 one of the few areas of bilateral cooperation that still endure between the United States and Russia.<\/p>\n

Continuously inhabited since 2000, the ISS seeks to showcase multinational cooperation, bringing together Europe, Japan, the US and Russia.<\/p>\n

The four astronauts being evacuated had been trained to handle unexpected medical situations, said Amit Kshatriya, a senior Nasa official, praising how they had dealt with the situation.<\/p>\n

With Agence France-Presse and Associated Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Four crew members have left the International Space Station (ISS) and are heading back to Earth after a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":285288,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[270],"tags":[18,19,17,133,451],"class_list":{"0":"post-285287","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-space","8":"tag-eire","9":"tag-ie","10":"tag-ireland","11":"tag-science","12":"tag-space"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115897750521469815","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285287","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=285287"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285287\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/285288"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=285287"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=285287"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=285287"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}