ISS astronaut medical evacuation latest news: NASA weighs return to Earth options

“No departure date has been announced, though the crew has begun checking the fit and operability of their Dragon pressure suits,” NASA wrote in update today. “Fit verification is necessary because the spine lengthens and body fluids shift toward the head in microgravity, affecting torso and limb dimensions. The quartet also tested the suits’ audio and video communication systems.”

The Dragon pressure suits are the same black and white SpaceX spacesuits worn by Crew-11 astronauts Mike Fincke, Zena Cardman, Kimiya Yui and Oleg Platanov during their launch in August 2025. Cardman will command the Dragon flight home with Fincke as pilot. Kimuya and Platanov will serve as mission specialists.

The astronauts have also begun packing for their trip home.

“The foursome began collecting their personal items and packing them for stowage aboard the spacecraft,” NASA wrote in the update.

Cardman spent time today flushing water from and powerfing down two NASA spacesuits on the ISS. She and Fincke were supposed to use the suits during a spacewalk on Jan. 8 and another one next week. Both spacewalks werte canceled due to the medical issue with one of the Crew-11 astronauts.

Yui and Platanov spent time on final science experiments of their mission, including one by Platanov studying how the inner lining of blood vessels work to keep blood flowing in space, in order to avoid the formation of blood clots.

Tariq Malik

You can read our look back at medical issues in space here by Josh Dinner.

Dr. James Polk, NASA’s chief medical officer, has said the medical issue is not an injury to the astronaut afflicted, but rather something related to the prolonged exposure to weighlessness by astronauts living and working on the International Space Station.

“It’s mostly having a medical issue in the difficult areas of microgravity and the suite of hardware that we operate in,” Polk said.

NASA officials have also said the issue was not connected with the Crew-11 astronauts’ work at the time to prepare for a planned spacewalk scheduled for Jan. 8, which was subsequently cancelled.

The months-long missions on the ISS can have lasting effects on the human body, forcing astronauts to readapt to live on Earth when they return, including rebuilding the muscle mass and bone density lost in space. At least one astronaut suffered a blood clot in orbit due to deep vein thrombisis at the two-month mark of a planned six-month mission. Physicians on Earth were able to devise a treatment for the astronaut to implement in space to address the issue and complete the mission’s full duration.

Here’s a look at those astronaut medical issues and others from the history of human spaceflight by our writer Josh Dinner.

Tariq Malik

“Big decision by NASA leadership, with multiple domino impacts on operations, but I’m glad to see, as always, crew health and safety come first,” Hadfield wrote on X.

Normally, NASA overlaps incoming and outgoing crews aboard the ISS, but with the possibility of evacuating Crew-11 before Crew-12’s arrival, Hadfield voiced confidence. “The Station will be more vulnerable until the replacement crew of 4 can launch, but we have deep experience running the place with just 3 astronauts for a while,” he wrote.

Former NASA astronaut Ed Lu also weighed in on X. “The afflicted space station astronaut … is almost certainly feeling they have let down the crew. We were trained to get the mission done. But I do trust NASA to do the right thing here.”

It’s still unclear when exactly Crew-11 will depart the station, or when and if NASA will determine an earlier launch date for Crew-12.

Josh Dinner

NASA chief Jared Isaacman said Thursday that NASA’s Artemis 2 mission, which will launch four astronauts around the moon, will remain on track to launch in early February. The mission will lift off from the Kennedy Space Center, where SpaceX will also launch the Crew-12 astronauts. The Crew-11 astronauts will also have to splashdown off the Florida coast before then.

“These would be totally separate campaigns at this point,” Isaacman said during a Jan. 8 press conference to provide an update on NASA’s decision to end Crew-11 early. “There’s no reason to believe at this point in time that there’d be any overlap that we have to deconflict for.”

You can read the full story here by Staff Writer Josh Dinner.

NASA is drawing up plans today to return four Crew-11 astronauts to Earth from the International Space Station earlier than planned due to a medical concern with one of the space travelers. We will have the latest updates as events unfold here.

The Crew-11 astronauts are NASA’s Mike Fincke and Zena Cardman, Japan’s Kimuya Yui, and Russia’s Oleg Platonov. NASA officials canceled a planned Jan. 8 spacewalk by Fincke and Cardman due to the medical concern, but the agency has not said which of the four astronauts suffered the medical issue out of privacy concerns.

The astronaut who suffered the medical issue is in a stable condition, but NASA does want to return them to Earth where they can receive treatment with better care than the conditions on the ISS allow.

NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman announced his decision to bring the Crew-11 astronauts home early on their SpaceX Dragon capsule on Thursday (Jan. 8). The agency is now drawing up plans to both undock the Crew-11 Dragon and splashdown off the Florida coast early, while also accelerating the planned launch of a replacement crew on the SpaceX Crew-12 mission.

The departure of the Crew-11 astronauts will leave NASA astronaut Chris Williams and two cosmonauts, Sergey Kud-Sverchkov and Sergei Mikayev, on their own on the ISS. Crew-11 launched to the ISS in August 2025, with Williams and crew launching on a Soyuz rocket in November.

Watch this space for more updates on this developing story.

Tariq Malik