Such a situation unfolded at the ISS resulting in Nasa cutting short the mission of its four-member crew, after one of them suffered a medical emergency. This is the first such evacuation in the 25-year history of the
This comes hours after the space agency cancelled the first spacewalk of the year. Nasa did not identify the astronaut or the medical issue but informed that the unidentified crewmember is stable. They clarified that it did not stem from an injury aboard the spacecraft or from work on the ISS.
Here is all you need to know.
Astronaut on board ISS falls ill
Nasa evacuated crew members of the Crew-11 space mission following a medical issue, but officials at the space agency refrained from specifying which astronaut had taken ill.
During a short-notice press conference in Washington, newly-appointed Nasa Administrator Jared Isaacman told reporters that he and medical officials made the decision to return the astronauts because "the capability to diagnose and treat this properly does not live on the International Space Station."
Nasa Chief Health and Medical Officer James Polk said, “We have a very robust suite of medical hardware onboard the International Space Station, but we don’t have the complete amount of hardware that I would have in the emergency department, for example, to complete a workup of the patient,” Polk said. “And in this particular incident, the medical incident was sufficient enough that we were concerned about the astronaut, that we would like to complete that workup.”
NASA's SpaceX Crew-11 crew members, Mission Specialist Oleg Platonov of Roscosmos, Pilot Mike Fincke of the US, Commander Zena Cardman of the US, and Mission Specialist Kimiya Yui of Japan's JAXA, react as they stand outside the Operations Checkout Building at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, US. Reuters
He further said, "This was not an injury that occurred in the pursuit of operations," meaning it did not happen while the astronaut was working.
Amit Kshatriya, a Nasa associate administrator, said it was the "first time we've done a controlled medical evacuation from the vehicle. So that is unusual." He further said the crew deployed their "onboarding training" to "manage unexpected medical situations."
"Yesterday was a textbook example of that training in action. Once the situation on the station stabilised, careful deliberations led us to the decision to return Crew 11... while ensuring minimal operational impact to ongoing work aboard."
Nasa's astronauts on board the ISS
The medical issue occurred among the members of the Crew-11 mission, onboard the ISS. The four astronauts on Nasa-SpaceX Crew 11 are US members Mike Fincke and Zena Cardman, along with Japan's Kimiya Yui and Russia's Oleg Platonov. They would return within the coming days to one of the routine splashdown sites.
The crew had been onboard the revolving space lab since last August and was due to return around May this year. Typically, Nasa would not bring a team such as this back to Earth before another was in place.
Now, Chris Williams, who was launched on a Russian mission to the station, will stay onboard to maintain a US presence. Meanwhile, Russians Sergey Kud-Sverchkov and Sergei Mikaev are also there.
Continuously inhabited since 2000, the ISS functions as a testbed for research that supports deeper space exploration -- including eventual missions to Mars.
It is set to be decommissioned after 2030, with its orbit gradually lowered until it breaks up in the atmosphere over a remote part of the Pacific Ocean called Point Nemo, a spacecraft graveyard.
First spacewalk of 2026 cancelled
Earlier on Thursday (January 8), astronauts Fincke (flight commander) and Cardman (flight engineer) were supposed to conduct a six-and-a-half-hour spacewalk to perform power upgrade work. But it was called off due to the same medical issue.
Spacewalks involve intense training and significant risk, with astronauts operating in cumbersome suits and executing carefully planned movements while attached to the space station. The space agency does not take cancelling spacewalks easily.
Nasa in 2024 called off a planned spacewalk at the last minute because an astronaut experienced "spacesuit discomfort." In 2021, US astronaut Mark Vande Hei, called off his spacewalk over a pinched nerve.
With inputs from agencies
