{"id":687127,"date":"2026-01-10T16:56:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-10T16:56:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/687127\/"},"modified":"2026-01-10T16:56:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-10T16:56:09","slug":"nasa-announces-timeline-of-astronauts-early-departure-from-iss-due-to-serious-medical-issue-international-space-station","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/687127\/","title":{"rendered":"Nasa announces timeline of astronauts\u2019 early departure from ISS due to \u2018serious\u2019 medical issue | International Space Station"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nasa<\/a> has announced when it will commence its first medical evacuation from the International Space Station<\/a> after an astronaut fell ill with a \u201cserious\u201d but undisclosed issue.<\/p>\n

The US space agency announced<\/a> on social media on Friday night that it will aim to have the crew leave the station no earlier than 5pm EST on Wednesday, 14 January, with the goal of them landing near California early on Thursday morning, 15 January, \u201cdepending on weather and recovery conditions\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter discussions with chief health and medical officer Dr James Polk and leadership across the agency, I\u2019ve come to the decision that it\u2019s in the best interest of our astronauts to return Crew-11 ahead of their planned departure,\u201d Nasa\u2019s administrator, Jared Isaacman, said at a briefing<\/a> on Thursday.<\/p>\n

This is the first medical evacuation<\/a> from the space station in its 25-year history. An astronaut in the orbital laboratory reportedly fell ill with a \u201cserious\u201d but undisclosed issue. Nasa also had to cancel its first spacewalk of the year.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis was a serious medical condition,\u201d Isaacman said. \u201cThat is why we\u2019re pursuing this path.\u201d<\/p>\n

The agency did not identify the astronaut or the medical problem, citing patient privacy.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause the astronaut is absolutely stable, this is not an emergent evacuation,\u201d Polk said. \u201cWe\u2019re not immediately disembarking and getting the astronaut down, but it leaves that lingering risk and lingering question as to what that diagnosis is, and that means there is some lingering risk for that astronaut onboard.\u201d<\/p>\n

Crew-11<\/a>, led by US commander Zena Cardman, arrived on a SpaceX capsule in August. The group also includes Nasa astronaut Mike Fincke, Japanese astronaut Kimiya Yui and Russian cosmonaut Oleg Platonov.<\/p>\n

Three others, US astronaut Chris Williams and Russia\u2019s Sergei Mikayev and Sergei Kud-Sverchkov, will continue living and working at the station.<\/p>\n

Nasa plans to bring the ageing space station, which is expensive to operate, out of orbit by late 2030 or early 2031.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nasa has announced when it will commence its first medical evacuation from the International Space Station after an…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":687128,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3844],"tags":[70,413,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-687127","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-space","8":"tag-science","9":"tag-space","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115871861087510839","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/687127","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=687127"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/687127\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/687128"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=687127"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=687127"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=687127"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}