‘Lingering risk’: Why Nasa is bringing 4 astronauts home from ISS before scheduled return — key details of Crew-11 mission

Nasa astronauts aboard the International Space Station will return “no earlier than 5 pm ET on January 14,” after a medical issue led the crew to end their mission ahead of schedule, Nasa said in a statement, adding that the crew member was ‘stable’.In a post on X, the American space agency said it was working with SpaceX to undock the Crew-11 spacecraft from the space station no earlier than 5 pm ET on January 14. If weather and recovery conditions allowed, the capsule was expected to splash down off the coast of California early on January 15.The space agency has not shared details about the medical situation or the name of the crew member, calling it the first such case in the space station’s history. Officials said the issue was not caused by an injury on board. The crewmember involved was stable and does not need an emergency evacuation.Nasa’s administrator Jared Isaacman had earlier said the situation involved a serious medical condition, which is why the agency decided to bring the mission to an early end. Because of this, Nasa also cancelled what would have been its first spacewalk of the year.The space agency’s chief health and medical officer, Dr James Polk, had said the affected crew member was now stable, but there was still some risk. He added that doctors had not yet been able to clearly identify the problem.“It leaves that lingering risk and lingering question as to what that diagnosis is. That means there’s some lingering risk for that astronaut on board. And so always, we err on the side of the astronaut’s health and welfare,” he added.The crew returning includes American astronauts Mike Fincke and Zena Cardman, Japan’s Kimiya Yui, and Russian cosmonaut Oleg Platonov. Another American astronaut, Chris Williams, will remain on the space station to maintain a US presence.Crew-11 has been in space since August 1. Missions to the ISS usually last about six months, and the astronauts were already due to return to Earth in the coming weeks.The International Space Station has handled medical problems before during its continuous occupation since 2000. In one case, an astronaut developed a blood clot in a jugular vein, showing that health emergencies in space are rare and taken seriously.The last time a space mission was cut short due to health concerns was in 1985. Soviet cosmonaut Vladimir Vasyutin returned early from a space station after falling ill with an infection and a high fever.