Ailing astronaut returns to Earth with crew in NASA’s first medical evacuation – National
An ailing astronaut returned to Earth with three others on Thursday, ending their mission to the space station a month before NASA’s first medical exit.
SpaceX guided the capsule into a midnight splashdown in the Pacific near San Diego, less than 11 hours after the astronauts left the International Space Station. Their first stop was the hospital where they would spend the night.
“Obviously we took this step (to return early) because it was a serious health situation,” said new NASA administrator Jared Isaacman after the news broke. “The astronaut in question is currently fine, he is in good spirits and is being evaluated by doctors.”
It was an unexpected end to a mission that began in August and left the orbiting lab with one American and two Russians aboard. NASA and SpaceX say they will try to boost the launch of a new crew of four; lifoff is currently targeting mid-February.
NASA’s Zena Cardman and Mike Fincke are joined on the return by Japan’s Kimiya Yui and Russia’s Oleg Platonov. Officials declined to identify the astronaut who suffered a medical condition last week or to describe what happened, citing medical privacy.
Support teams aboard the SpaceX recovery ship SHANNON work alongside the SpaceX Dragon Endeavor spacecraft shortly after it touched down on the coast of Long Beach, Calif., on Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026.
NASA with AP
While the astronaut was stabilized in orbit, NASA wanted them to return to Earth as soon as possible for proper care and diagnostic tests. Getting into the collision did not require special changes or accommodations, officials said, and the rescue vessel had its usual quota of medical professionals on board.
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The astronauts emerged from the capsule, one by one, within an hour of spraying. They were helped into the listening rooms and taken for a routine check-up, waving cameras. Isaacman monitored the action from Mission Control in Houston, as well as the crew’s families.
NASA decided a few days ago to take all the crew to a hospital in the San Diego area following the explosion of the helicopter that was running from the rescue ship. The astronaut in question will undergo a thorough medical examination before flying with the rest of the crew back to Houston on Friday, assuming everyone has recovered sufficiently. Platonov’s return to Moscow was ambiguous.
NASA has repeatedly stressed over the past week that this is not an emergency. An astronaut became ill or injured on Jan. 7, causing NASA to cancel the next day’s spacewalk for Cardman and Fincke, and ultimately leading to an early return. It was the first time NASA had terminated a space shuttle for health reasons. The Russians had done that decades ago.
Spacewalk preparations did not lead to a health situation, Isaacman noted, but for anything else, “it would be premature to draw conclusions or close any doors at this time.” It is not known if the same thing happens on Earth, he added.
The space station has passed with three astronauts before, sometimes even just two. NASA said it would not be able to conduct a spacewalk, even in an emergency, until the next crew, consisting of two Americans, one Frenchman and one Russian astronaut, arrived.
This screenshot from a video provided by NASA shows NASA astronaut Mike Fincke being assisted by the SpaceX Crew-11 capsule.
NASA with AP
Isaacman said it’s too soon to know if the launch of the station’s booster will go further than the agency’s first lunar image with astronauts in more than half a century. The moon rocket is moving into space this weekend at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, with fuel tests to be carried out early next month. Until all that is completed, the launch date cannot be confirmed; the first lunar flyby could take off on Feb. 6.
For now, NASA is working on both missions in parallel, with limited staffing, according to Isaacman.
“If the time comes when we have to split between two human spaceflight missions, that’s a very good problem to have at NASA,” he told reporters.
© 2026 The Canadian Press
