A four-person crew aboard the International Space Station will return to Earth several weeks early because of a medical emergency.
NASA confirmed last week that a serious medical condition affected one member of the current ISS rotation. For privacy reasons it has not released details, but said the crew member is now stable.
At a press conference, NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said the station lacked the capability to treat the condition, so the decision was made to bring the crew home early. It is the first such evacuation in the station’s nearly 30-year history.
The returning crew includes US astronauts Zena Cardman and Mike Finke, Japanese astronaut Kimiya Yui, and Russian cosmonaut Oleg Platonov. They will leave the ISS aboard their SpaceX Dragon crew capsule on Wednesday at 5:00 pm EST, with a splashdown off the California coast expected around 3:40 am Thursday.
Another three-person crew currently on the ISS will remain aboard. The next SpaceX crew rotation had been scheduled to launch no earlier than February 15; NASA said it is working with SpaceX to move that date forward.
Edited by: Carla Bleiker
