{"id":169112,"date":"2026-02-25T20:29:12","date_gmt":"2026-02-25T20:29:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/169112\/"},"modified":"2026-02-25T20:29:12","modified_gmt":"2026-02-25T20:29:12","slug":"nasa-astronaut-mike-fincke-reveals-medical-incident-behind-crew-11-return-orlando-sentinel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/169112\/","title":{"rendered":"NASA astronaut Mike Fincke reveals medical incident behind Crew-11 return \u2013 Orlando Sentinel"},"content":{"rendered":"

NASA astronaut Mike Fincke announced Wednesday that it was his medical issue aboard the International Space Station in January that prompted the agency to return the SpaceX Crew-11 mission to Earth early.<\/p>\n

\u201cI experienced a medical event that required immediate attention from my incredible crewmates,\u201d Fincke said according to a NASA website update. \u201cThanks to their quick response and the guidance of our NASA flight surgeons, my status quickly stabilized.\u201d<\/p>\n

Both Fincke and fellow NASA astronaut Zena Cardman had been preparing for a spacewalk on the station when those plans were called off.<\/p>\n

While Fincke was attended to and stabilized on the station, NASA determined that bringing him home with his crewmates Cardman, JAXA astronaut and Roscosmos cosmonaut Oleg Platonov was the most prudent action.<\/p>\n

Crew-11 had been slated to remain on board until late February at least, awaiting the Crew-12 relief mission.<\/p>\n

Instead, Crew-11 departed on what became NASA\u2019s first medical evacuation from the space station in history, although its was not considered an emergency. The quartet splashed down in the Pacific<\/a> off the coast of San Diego on Jan. 15 after 5 and a half months on board.<\/p>\n

The station\u2019s population remained at three for a month until Crew-12 arrived to the station<\/a> after launching from Cape Canaveral on Feb. 13.<\/p>\n

The reason for the evacuation was because the station did not have advanced medical imaging on board. NASA was careful not to reveal Fincke was the reason behind the evacuation, and only gave out this information at Fincke\u2019s behest. NASA previously dealt with a medical issue that arose after the Crew-8 landing in 2024,<\/a> which sent one of its four crew to the hospital, but NASA has yet to reveal which crew member.<\/p>\n

Fincke said he was grateful to all of his Expedition 74 crewmates on board the station, including NASA\u2019s Chris Williams and Rososmos cosmonauts Sergey Kud-Sverchkov and Sergei Mikayev, who remained on the station after Crew-11\u2019s departure.<\/p>\n

He also thanked the entire NASA team, SpaceX and medical staff at Scripps Memorial Hospital La Jolla near San Diego.<\/p>\n

\u201cTheir professionalism and dedication ensured a positive outcome,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Fincke, 58, was chosen as an astronaut in 1996. The Crew-11 mission was his fourth trip to space. Previous missions included the last flight of Space Shuttle Endeavour in 2011.<\/p>\n

Fincke did not reveal exactly what was behind the medical event.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m doing very well and continuing standard post-flight reconditioning at NASA\u2019s Johnson Space Center in Houston,\u201d he said. \u201cSpaceflight is an incredible privilege, and sometimes it reminds us just how human we are. Thank you all for your support.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NASA astronaut Mike Fincke announced Wednesday that it was his medical issue aboard the International Space Station in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":169113,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[558,114,115,139,141,140,554,109,76686,1769],"class_list":["post-169112","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-business","tag-latest-headlines","tag-news","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news","tag-science","tag-social","tag-social-business","tag-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169112","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=169112"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169112\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/169113"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=169112"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=169112"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=169112"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}