![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/the-four-crew-members-of-nasas-spacex-crew-11-mission-to-the-6QSNR5JMVBEU3KWSNRUMWKL6II.jpg\")
<\/p>\nIn a rare move, NASA is cutting a mission aboard the International Space Station short after an astronaut had a medical issue.<\/p>\n
The space agency said the US-Japanese-Russian crew of four will return to Earth in the coming days, earlier than planned.<\/p>\n
NASA cancelled its first spacewalk of the year because of the health issue. The space agency did not identify the astronaut or the medical issue, citing patient privacy. The crew member was stable.<\/p>\n
NASA officials stressed that it was not an onboard emergency, but are “erring on the side of caution for the crew member”, said Dr James Polk, NASA’s chief health and medical officer.<\/p>\n
Polk said this was the NASA\u2019s first medical evacuation from the space station although astronauts have been treated aboard for things like toothaches and ear pain.<\/p>\n
The crew of four returning home arrived at the orbiting lab via SpaceX in August for a stay of at least six months. The crew included NASA’s Zena Cardman and Mike Fincke along with Japan\u2019s Kimiya Yui and Russia\u2019s Oleg Platonov.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The four crew members of NASA\u2019s SpaceX Crew-11 mission to the International Space Station train inside a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft in Hawthorne, California. (Source: SpaceX) (Source: Supplied)<\/p>\n
Fincke and Cardman were supposed to carry out the spacewalk to make preparations for a future rollout of solar panels to provide additional power for the space station.<\/p>\n
It was Fincke\u2019s fourth visit to the space station and Yui’s second time, according to NASA. This was the first spaceflight for Cardman and Platonov.<\/p>\n
“I\u2019m proud of the swift effort across the agency thus far to ensure the safety of our astronauts,” NASA administrator Jared Isaacman said.<\/p>\n
Three other astronauts are currently living and working aboard the space station including NASA\u2019s Chris Williams and Russia\u2019s Sergei Mikaev and Sergei Kud-Sverchkov, who launched in November aboard a Soyuz rocket for an eight-month stay. They\u2019re due to return home in the summer.<\/p>\n
NASA has tapped SpaceX to eventually bring the space station out of orbit by late 2030 or early 2031. Plans called for a safe reentry over ocean.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In a rare move, NASA is cutting a mission aboard the International Space Station short after an astronaut…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":224601,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[111,139,69,147,392],"class_list":["post-224600","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-science","tag-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224600","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=224600"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224600\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/224601"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=224600"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=224600"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=224600"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}