{"id":401437,"date":"2026-01-09T06:48:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-09T06:48:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/401437\/"},"modified":"2026-01-09T06:48:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-09T06:48:08","slug":"nasa-to-stage-first-ever-space-medical-evacuation-for-astronaut","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/401437\/","title":{"rendered":"NASA to stage first-ever space medical evacuation for astronaut"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cThis was not an injury that occurred in the pursuit of operations,\u201d Polk said.<\/p>\n<p>In light of the Crew-11 return, NASA and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.smh.com.au\/link\/follow-20170101-p5klik\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">SpaceX<\/a> are now looking at ways to expedite the launch of the next crewed mission to the International Space Station, called Crew-12. The flight was originally set to launch on February 15 at the earliest, the space agency said previously.<\/p>\n<p>Loading<\/p>\n<p>Typically, NASA prefers having new astronauts arrive at the space station before crews living on board depart for Earth, so there can be a handover of operations between the two groups. But with Crew-11 leaving early, the station will have two Russian cosmonauts and a lone NASA astronaut, Christopher Williams, on board until Crew-12 arrives.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cChris is trained to do every task that we would ask him to do on the vehicle,\u201d Amit Kshatriya, NASA\u2019s associate administrator, told reporters.<\/p>\n<p>Astronauts have dealt with medical episodes in space before that have interrupted work assignments. In 2021, NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei suffered a pinched nerve that forced the space agency to postpone a planned spacewalk.<\/p>\n<p>And in 2020, a case study revealed that an unidentified astronaut developed a blood clot in the jugular vein while living aboard the International Space Station.<\/p>\n<p>The astronaut landed safely at the end of their six-month mission following prescribed treatment from NASA and doctors.<\/p>\n<p>Bloomberg<\/p>\n<p>Get a note directly from our foreign correspondents on what\u2019s making headlines around the world. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.smh.com.au\/link\/follow-20170101-p56l7u\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Sign up for our weekly What in the World newsletter<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cThis was not an injury that occurred in the pursuit of operations,\u201d Polk said. In light of the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":401438,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[64,63,128,285],"class_list":["post-401437","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-science","tag-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/401437","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=401437"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/401437\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/401438"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=401437"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=401437"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=401437"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}