NASA will bring a crew of four astronauts home from the International Space Station before its scheduled return because of a “controlled medical evacuation,” agency officials said on Thursday.
During the 25-year history of the space station, this is the first time that astronauts will return early because of a medical issue.
NASA did not provide details on who had the medical issue, or what the issue was. But the agency said that the astronaut was in stable condition.
The affected astronaut is one of the four who arrived at the space station in August in one of SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsules: Zena Cardman and Michael Fincke of NASA; Kimiya Yui of JAXA, the Japanese space agency and Oleg Platonov of Roscosmos, the Russian space agency.
Their mission, known as Crew-11, was to conclude next month after Crew-12, the next group of four astronauts arrived. Now they will undock and return to Earth in the coming days.
“I’ve come to the decision that it’s in the best interest of our astronauts to return Crew-11 ahead of their planned departure,” Jared Isaacman, who the NASA administrator only since Dec. 18, said during a news conference on Thursday evening.
This was not an emergency requiring an immediate return to Earth, Mr. Isaacman and other NASA officials said, but a prudent precaution because of the limited medical facilities on the space station.
“It leaves that lingering risk and lingering question as to what that diagnosis is,” said Dr. James Polk, NASA’s chief health and medical officer. “That means there’s some lingering risk for that astronaut on board. And so always, we err on the side of the astronaut’s health and welfare.”
Dr. Polk described the astronaut’s condition as “absolutely stable.”
After Crew-11’s departure, three other astronauts will remain on the space station: Christopher Williams of NASA and Sergey Kud-Sverchkov and Sergey Mikaev of Russia. They flew to the space station on a Russian Soyuz spacecraft in November and are scheduled to remain there until summer.
The smaller number of astronauts in orbit will be able to continue operating the space station, although they would probably have to reduce the amount of scientific work they conduct.
In a statement on Wednesday, NASA said that it was postponing a spacewalk scheduled for Thursday because of a crew member’s medical issue. Mr. Fincke and Ms. Cardman were scheduled to conduct a six-and-a-half-hour spacewalk on Thursday to upgrade the station’s power system.
During the news conference, Dr. Polk said the medical issue was unrelated to the spacewalk or the operations of the space station.
It is Mr. Fincke’s fourth trip to the space station and Mr. Yui’s second, according to NASA. It is the first spaceflight for Ms. Cardman and Mr. Platonov.
As part of the crew’s mission, some of the astronauts are participating in studies to assess how astronaut health could be affected by deep space travel. This work includes examining how the body processes B vitamins in space and how body fluids are redistributed during constant weightlessness.
A timeline for the return is expected to be announced in the next 48 hours. It is to follow the usual procedures with a splashdown in the Pacific Ocean west of San Diego.
Mr. Isaacman said NASA and SpaceX were looking to move up the launch of Crew-12.
He said an early launch of Crew-12 would not have any effect on NASA’s Artemis II mission, which is scheduled to launch next month, sending four astronauts on a trip to the moon and back without landing.
Kenneth Chang, a science reporter at The Times, covers NASA and the solar system, and research closer to Earth.
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