Four crewmembers yesterday splashed down in the Pacific Ocean after a health issue prompted their mission to the International Space Station (ISS) to be cut a month short — the first such medical evacuation in the orbital lab’s history.
Space Technologies Corp (SpaceX) guided the capsule to a middle-of-the-night splashdown off San Diego, less than 11 hours after the astronauts exited the ISS.
A video feed from NASA showed US astronauts Mike Fincke and Zena Cardman, Russian cosmonaut Oleg Platonov and Japanese astronaut Kimiya Yui landing off San Diego at about 12:41am, after five months in space.
Photo: AFP
“It’s so good to be home,” said Cardman, the capsule commander.
The US space agency has declined to disclose which crewmember has the health problem or give details about the issue, but it has stressed the return is not an emergency situation.
The affected crewmember “was and continues to be in stable condition,” NASA Public Affairs Office Rob Navias said on Wednesday.
Photo NASA / NASA+ Livestream / AFP
“First and foremost, we are all OK. Everyone on board is stable, safe and well cared for,” Fincke, the pilot of SpaceX Crew-11, said previously on a social media.
“This was a deliberate decision to allow the right medical evaluations to happen on the ground, where the full range of diagnostic capability exists. It’s the right call, even if it’s a bit bittersweet,” he added in a post this week.
The Crew-11 quartet arrived at the ISS in early August and had been scheduled to stay onboard the space station until they were rotated out in the middle of next month with the arrival of the next crew.
NASA Chief Health and Medical Officer James Polk said that “lingering risk” and a “lingering question as to what that diagnosis is” led to the decision to bring back the crew earlier than originally scheduled.
American astronaut Chris Williams and Russian cosmonauts Sergey Kud-Sverchkov and Sergei Mikaev, who arrived at the station in November aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft, remained on the ISS.
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