{"id":411293,"date":"2026-01-15T16:41:12","date_gmt":"2026-01-15T16:41:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/411293\/"},"modified":"2026-01-15T16:41:12","modified_gmt":"2026-01-15T16:41:12","slug":"sick-astronaut-returns-to-earth-with-crew-in-nasas-1st-medical-evacuation-national","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/411293\/","title":{"rendered":"Sick astronaut returns to Earth with crew in NASA\u2019s 1st medical evacuation – National"},"content":{"rendered":"

An ailing astronaut returned to Earth<\/a> with three others on Thursday,\u00a0ending their space station mission\u00a0more than a month early<\/a> in NASA<\/a>\u2019s first medical evacuation.<\/p>\n

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SpaceX guided the capsule to a middle-of-the-night splashdown in the Pacific near San Diego, less than 11 hours after\u00a0the astronauts exited\u00a0the\u00a0International Space Station<\/a>. Their first stop was a hospital for an overnight stay.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously, we took this action (early return) because it was a serious medical condition,\u201d NASA\u2019s new administrator Jared Isaacman said following splashdown. \u201cThe astronaut in question is fine right now, in good spirits and going through the proper medical checks.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was an unexpected finish to\u00a0a mission that began in August\u00a0and left the orbiting lab with only one American and two Russians on board. NASA and SpaceX said they would try to move up the launch of a fresh crew of four; liftoff is currently targeted for mid-February.<\/p>\n

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NASA\u2019s Zena Cardman and Mike Fincke were joined on the return by Japan\u2019s Kimiya Yui and Russia\u2019s Oleg Platonov. Officials have refused to identify the astronaut who developed the health problem last week or explain what happened, citing medical privacy.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tSupport teams onboard the SpaceX recovery ship SHANNON work around the SpaceX Dragon Endeavour spacecraft shortly after it landed off the coast of Long Beach, Calif., Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026.\t\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tNASA via AP\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

While the astronaut was stable in orbit, NASA wanted them back on Earth as soon as possible to receive proper care and diagnostic testing. The entry and splashdown required no special changes or accommodations, officials said, and the recovery ship had its usual allotment of medical experts on board.<\/p>\n

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The astronauts emerged from the capsule, one by one, within an hour of splashdown. They were helped onto reclining cots and then whisked away for standard medical checks, waving to the cameras. Isaacman monitored the action from Mission Control in Houston, along with the crew\u2019s families.<\/p>\n

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NASA decided a few days ago to take the entire crew straight to a San Diego-area hospital following splashdown and even practiced helicopter runs there from the recovery ship. The astronaut in question will receive in-depth medical checks before flying with the rest of the crew back to Houston on Friday, assuming everyone is well enough. Platonov\u2019s return to Moscow was unclear.<\/p>\n

NASA stressed repeatedly over the past week that this was not an emergency. The astronaut fell sick or was injured on Jan. 7, prompting NASA to call off the next day\u2019s spacewalk by Cardman and Fincke, and ultimately resulting in the early return. It was the first time NASA cut short a spaceflight for medical reasons. The Russians had done so decades ago.<\/p>\n

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Spacewalk preparations did not lead to the medical situation, Isaacman noted, but for anything else, \u201cit would be very premature to draw any conclusions or close any doors at this point.\u201d It\u2019s unknown whether the same thing could have happened on Earth, he added.<\/p>\n

The space station has gotten by with three astronauts before, sometimes even with just two. NASA said it will be unable to perform a spacewalk, even for an emergency, until the arrival of the next crew, which has two Americans, one French and one Russian astronaut.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tThis screengrab from video provided by NASA shows NASA astronaut Mike Fincke getting helped out of the SpaceX Crew-11 capsule.\t\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tNASA via AP\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Isaacman said it\u2019s too soon to know whether the launch of station reinforcements will take priority over the agency\u2019s first moonshot with astronauts in more than a half-century. The moon rocket moves to the pad this weekend at Florida\u2019s Kennedy Space Center, with a fueling test to be conducted by early next month. Until all that is completed, a launch date cannot be confirmed; the earliest the moon flyaround could take off is Feb. 6.<\/p>\n

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For now, NASA is working in parallel on both missions, with limited overlap of personnel, according to Isaacman.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf it comes down to a point in time to where we have to deconflict between two human spaceflight missions, that is a very good problem to have at NASA,\u201d he told reporters.<\/p>\n

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\n\t\t&copy 2026 The Canadian Press\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An ailing astronaut returned to Earth with three others on Thursday,\u00a0ending their space station mission\u00a0more than a month…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":411294,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[49,48,18160,307,66,519,2845,3275],"class_list":["post-411293","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-iss","tag-nasa","tag-science","tag-trending","tag-u-s-news","tag-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/411293","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=411293"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/411293\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/411294"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=411293"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=411293"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=411293"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}