NASA evacuates 4 astronauts from ISS on first medical return with SpaceX

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — An astronaut in need of doctors’ care departed the International Space Station on Wednesday with three crewmates, in what NASA said was the agency’s first medical evacuation.

The four astronauts returning to Earth include Zena Cardman and outgoing space station commander Mike Fincke, along with Japan’s Kimiya Yui and Russia’s Oleg Platonov. They are aiming for an early Thursday splashdown in the Pacific near San Diego with SpaceX, a decision that cuts short their mission by more than a month.

NASA has not identified the affected astronaut or the health concern. Officials also declined to specify the medical issue when asked last week, citing medical privacy, and said the situation was not an emergency.

In remarks shared ahead of the return trip, NASA astronaut Zena Cardman said, “Our timing of this departure is unexpected,” adding, “but 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.”

Fincke, speaking earlier this week via social media as commander, said the astronaut requiring care is “stable, safe and well cared for.” Fincke said it was a deliberate choice “to allow the right medical evaluations to happen on the ground, where the full range of diagnostic capability exists.”

NASA’s decision followed an abrupt change to the crew’s planned schedule. The agency canceled the next day’s spacewalk by Cardman and Fincke on Jan. 7, prompting officials to later announce an early return. NASA said the health problem was unrelated to spacewalk preparations or other station operations, but offered no additional details.

NASA said it would stick with the same entry and splashdown procedures at the end of the flight, with the usual assortment of medical experts aboard the recovery ship in the Pacific. The agency said it was not yet known how quickly all four would be flown from California to Houston, home to Johnson Space Center, where astronauts typically go after splashdown.

With the returning crew gone, one U.S. and two Russian astronauts remain aboard the orbiting laboratory. The remaining crew is about 1½ months into an eight-month mission that began with a Soyuz rocket liftoff from Kazakhstan.

Until SpaceX delivers another crew, NASA said it will have to stand down from routine spacewalks and even emergency ones, because a spacewalk is a two-person job that requires backup help from crew inside the station. NASA and SpaceX are working to move up the launch of a fresh four-person crew from Florida, currently targeted for mid-February.

NASA said computer modeling predicted a medical evacuation from the space station about every three years, but it had not happened in 65 years of human spaceflight. The story notes that the Russians had faced such situations earlier, including the 1985 early return of Soviet cosmonaut Vladimir Vasyutin from Salyut 7 after a serious infection or related illness.

The medical evacuation was also the first major decision by NASA’s new administrator, Jared Isaacman, who took office in December. Isaacman said in announcing the decision last week, “The health and the well-being of our astronauts is always and will be our highest priority.”