The historic medical evacuation of four astronauts on board the International Space Station (ISS) has begun, as the crew has entered the spacecraft set to take them home.
Crew-11 boarded the SpaceX Dragon capsule Wednesday afternoon and closed the hatch of their vehicle at 2.29pm ET, one of the final major checkpoints before departure.
The Dragon capsule is scheduled to depart the ISS at 5.15pm ET, beginning a roughly 10-hour space flight to their deorbiting point above the US early Thursday morning.
The capsule is excepted to splash down off the coast of California around 3.40am on January 15.
The deorbit, scheduled for around 2.50am, involves Crew-11 firing its engines briefly to reduce the capsule’s speed, slowing the craft down enough for gravity to take over and pull it back toward Earth.
NASA astronauts Zena Cardman and Mike Fincke, Japanese astronaut Kimiya Yui, and Russian cosmonaut Oleg Platonov were not set to return to Earth for another month, but a member of Crew-11 suffered a serious medical issue last Wednesday.
While the astronaut who suffered the medical episode was not revealed, NASA’s chief medical officer Dr James Polk said they were in stable condition and was not in any immediate danger.
New NASA administrator Jared Isaacman decided to bring the crew home early out of an abundance of caution, noting that astronaut’s medical episode was considered ‘serious’ and would require additional medical care on Earth.
This is a breaking story. More details to follow.
Crew-11 entered the SpaceX Dragon capsule Wednesday afternoon, closing the spacecraft’s hatch at 2.29pm ET
The SpaceX Dragon capsule (Pictured) carrying Crew-11 is scheduled to depart the International Space Station at 5.15pm ET Wednesday
This is the first time a crew on board the ISS has had their mission ended early due to medical reasons.
However, Dr Polk noted that the astronaut’s medical condition had nothing to do with an upcoming spacewalk on January 8 that was cancelled or any other operations on board the station.
‘It’s mostly having a medical issue in the difficult areas of microgravity,’ Polk explained without going into specifics at a January 8 press conference.
Crew-11 arrived at the ISS on August 1, 2025, meaning their return date had been scheduled for late February.
The four astronauts were supposed to leave after Crew-12 arrived on a new SpaceX Dragon capsule no earlier than February 15.
Until their arrival, a group including NASA astronaut Chris Williams and Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata, who arrived at the ISS aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft in November 2025, will be maintaining the station.
Isaacman said that any decision to potentially move up the launch of Crew-12 would not impact the upcoming Artemis II mission planned for February 2026.
He called the two launches ‘totally separate campaigns,’ meaning there should be no issue in launching Artemis on time. Artemis II will be the first manned spaceflight to orbit the moon since 1972.
Crew-11 before leaving the ISS. Roscosmos cosmonaut Oleg Platonov (Back left), NASA astronaut Mike Fincke (Front left), JAXA astronaut Kimiya Yui (Front right), and NASA’s Zena Cardman (Back left)
