Jan. 14 (UPI) — A medical issue with one astronaut prompted NASA to evacuate four Crew-11 members from the International Space Station for the first time in the space station’s history.
The medical issue is not an emergency, but NASA officials decided to evacuate the four Crew-11 members, who departed the ISS on Wednesday afternoon and are returning to Earth.
Crew-11 is made up of astronauts Zena Cardman and Michael Fincke, Russian cosmonaut Oleg Platonov and Kimiya Yui of Japan.
“It is not an emergency de-orbit, even though we always retain that capability and NASA and our partners train for that routinely,” NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman told media on Thursday.
“The capability to diagnose and treat this properly does not live on the International Space Station,” Isaacman said.
NASA officials did not identify the affected crew member or the medical condition prompting the evacuation, but they said the individual is in stable condition.
The matter arose when a medical issue reported on Jan. 7 forced NASA to delay a planned spacewalk on Thursday that involved the affected astronaut.
Cardman and Fincke were scheduled to do the postponed spacewalk, which narrows the medical condition to one of those two.
NASA chief medical officer Dr. James Polk said the medical issue involves microgravity and is not caused by an injury or an operational issue.
The limited ability to diagnose the medical condition required the evacuation, and the affected astronaut is expected to recover.
While the medical evacuation is the first in the history of the ISS, Polk said statistical analysis suggested such issues should arise about every three years aboard the orbiting science lab.
The departure of the four Crew-11 members leaves the ISS with a skeleton crew of three until replacements are deployed.
Those three are astronaut Christopher Williams and cosmonauts Sergey Kud-Sverchkov and Sergei Mikayev, who arrived at the ISS on Nov. 27 after being conveyed by a Russian Soyuz spacecraft.
The SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule Endeavor carried the four to the ISS on Aug. 1, and their six-month deployment was nearing its end when they were ordered to return to Earth.
“We’re always going to do the right thing for our astronauts, but it’s recognizing it’s the end of the mission right now,” Isaacman said of the medical evacuation.
“They’ve achieved almost all of their mission objectives,” he added. “Crew-12 is going to launch in a matter of weeks, anyway.”
Isaacman said the spaceship is ready and the weather is ideal, making it an “opportune time” to bring them home.