{"id":397602,"date":"2026-01-09T17:27:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-09T17:27:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/397602\/"},"modified":"2026-01-09T17:27:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-09T17:27:07","slug":"nasa-is-ending-crew-11-astronauts-mission-a-month-early","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/397602\/","title":{"rendered":"NASA is ending Crew-11 astronauts&#8217; mission a month early"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"col-body mb-4 leading-7 text-[18px] md:leading-8 break-words min-w-0 charcoal-color\">NASA has <a class=\"link \" href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/science\/space\/nasa-bring-space-station-astronauts-home-early-medical-issue-rcna253077\" data-i13n=\"cpos:1;pos:1\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:decided;cpos:1;pos:1;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\">decided<\/a> to bring the Crew-11 astronauts home a month earlier than originally planned due to a \u201c<a class=\"link \" href=\"https:\/\/arstechnica.com\/space\/2026\/01\/in-a-first-nasa-orders-astronauts-home-after-unspecified-medical-issue\/\" data-i13n=\"cpos:2;pos:1\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:medical concern;cpos:2;pos:1;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\">medical concern<\/a>\u201d with one of them. This is the first time in its history that the space agency is cutting a mission short due to a medical issue, but it didn\u2019t identify the crew member or divulge the exact situation and its severity. The astronauts will be heading back to Earth in the coming days. NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said the agency will be releasing more details about their flight back home within 48 hours.<\/p>\n<p class=\"col-body mb-4 leading-7 text-[18px] md:leading-8 break-words min-w-0 charcoal-color\">The agency previously <a class=\"link \" href=\"https:\/\/www.engadget.com\/science\/space\/nasa-delays-spacewalk-due-to-a-medical-concern-with-a-crew-member-171900024.html\" data-i13n=\"cpos:3;pos:1\" data-ylk=\"slk:postponed;cpos:3;pos:1;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">postponed<\/a> an International Space Station (ISS) spacewalk scheduled for January 8, citing a medical concern with a crew member that appeared the day before. NASA\u2019s chief health and medical officer, James \u201cJD\u201d Polk, said the affected astronaut is \u201cabsolutely stable\u201d and that this isn\u2019t a case of an emergency evacuation. The ISS has a \u201crobust suite of medical hardware\u201d onboard, he said, but not enough for a complete workup to determine a diagnosis. Without a proper diagnosis, NASA doesn\u2019t know if the astronaut\u2019s health could be negatively affected by the environment aboard the ISS. That is why the agency is erring on the side of caution.<\/p>\n<p class=\"col-body mb-4 leading-7 text-[18px] md:leading-8 break-words min-w-0 charcoal-color\">Crew-11 left for the space station on August 1 and was supposed to come back to Earth on or around February 20. After they leave the station, only three people will remain: Two cosmonauts and one astronauts who\u2019ll be in charge of all the experiments currently being conducted on the orbiting lab. The team\u2019s replacement, Crew-12, was supposed to head to the ISS mid-February, but NASA is considering sending the astronauts to the station earlier than that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NASA has decided to bring the Crew-11 astronauts home a month earlier than originally planned due to a&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":397603,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[4173,147055,3631,192110,718,98243,79,193],"class_list":{"0":"post-397602","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-space","8":"tag-astronauts","9":"tag-crew-member","10":"tag-international-space-station","11":"tag-medical-concern","12":"tag-nasa","13":"tag-nasa-administrator","14":"tag-science","15":"tag-space"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397602","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=397602"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397602\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/397603"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=397602"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=397602"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=397602"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}