NASA has carried out its first-ever medical evacuation from the International Space Station, bringing four astronauts back to Earth more than a month earlier than planned after one crew member required medical care.
The astronauts — from the United States, Russia and Japan — undocked from the station on Wednesday aboard a SpaceX capsule and are due to splash down in the Pacific Ocean near San Diego early Thursday.
Officials declined to identify the astronaut who needed treatment or to give details of the medical issue, citing privacy. NASA said the astronaut was stable and that the decision was taken to allow full medical evaluation on Earth. The agency stressed the situation was not an emergency.
“Our timing of this departure is unexpected,” NASA astronaut Zena Cardman said before leaving orbit, adding that the crew had come together “as a family to help each other.”
The early return cuts short the mission by more than a month and temporarily reduces the space station crew to three. NASA said this will limit spacewalks until a replacement crew can be launched, now expected in mid-February.
Medical evacuations from the station were long considered possible, but this is the first in NASA’s 65-year history of human spaceflight. NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said the decision underscored the agency’s priorities. “The health and the well-being of our astronauts is always and will be our highest priority,” he said.
