Nasa and SpaceX are preparing for the first ever medical evacuation of the International Space Station (ISS) after an astronaut suffered an undisclosed health crisis.
The Crew-11 mission will return to Earth on Wednesday, several weeks ahead of schedule, due to a “medical concern” with a crew member.
No further details were given as to the nature of the issue due to medical, though the astronaut is understood to be in a stable condition.
“Due to medical privacy, it is not appropriate for Nasa to share more details about the crew member,” the US space agency said in a statement.
All four members of Crew-11 – Zena Cardman and Michael Fincke from Nasa, Kimiya Yyui from Japanese space agency JAXA, and Oleg Platonov from Russia’s Roscosmos – will return to Earth together.
Control of the ISS was handed over from commander Mike Fincke to Russian cosmonaut Sergey Kud-Sverchkov at 6:35pm GMT (2:35pm EST) on Monday ahead of a scheduled departure of Crew-11 on Wednesday.
The Crew-11 astronauts will begin the return mission no earlier than 7pm GMT on 14 January aboard a SpaceX Dragon craft, the US space agency said.
It is expected to splashdown in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Southern California on Thursday, weather permitting. Nasa it will then hold a news conference following their safe return.
It is the first time that a crew member has been evacuated from the orbiting laboratory, which has been continuously inhabited since November 2000.
Recently confirmed Nasa Administrator Jared Isaacman said on Thursday that the affected astronaut is in a stable condition.
“It is not an emergency deorbit, even though we always retain that capability, and Nasa and our partners train for that routinely,” he said at a press conference.
“The capability to diagnose and treat this properly does not live on the International Space Station... We’re always going to do the right thing for our astronauts, but it’s recognising it’s the end of the Crew-11 mission right now.”
